Brains differ in liberals, conservatives
There is little doubt that liberal and conservative brains do systematically differ. Liberals seem to have a bit missing where caution should be and an extra large bit where hatred resides. But proving that is another matter. The human brain is very complex and even particular parts of it seem to have many functions. The findings below do show that Left/Right brains differ but the detailed interpretation put on the results is just word-play. When does "fear" become "caution", for instance.
And the brain area said to drive "fear" is the amygdala. And associating the amygdala with "fear" is ludicrously simplistic. Other research has been interpreted as showing the same area to be associated with greater "sociability", for instance. So it would be equally logical to say that conservatives are more sociable rather than more fearful.
And the anterior cingulate cortex, which is said to be bigger in Leftists, is usually associated with emotion. So Leftists are more emotional! I won't quarrel with that!
The research below is interesting but hopelessly over-interpreted. All that the interpretations tell you is the politics of those who did the interpreting
EVERYONE knows that liberals and conservatives butt heads when it comes to world views, but scientists have now shown that their brains are actually built differently.
Liberals have more grey matter in a part of the brain associated with understanding complexity, while the conservative brain is bigger in the section related to processing fear, said the study today in Current Biology.
"We found that greater liberalism was associated with increased grey matter volume in the anterior cingulate cortex, whereas greater conservatism was associated with increased volume of the right amygdala," the study said.
Other research has shown greater brain activity in those areas, according to which political views a person holds, but this is the first study to show a physical difference in size in the same regions.
"Previously, some psychological traits were known to be predictive of an individual's political orientation," said Ryota Kanai of the University College London, where the research took place. "Our study now links such personality traits with specific brain structure."
The study was based on 90 "healthy young adults" who reported their political views on a scale of one to five from very liberal to very conservative, then agreed to have their brains scanned.
People with a large amygdala are "more sensitive to disgust" and tend to "respond to threatening situations with more aggression than do liberals and are more sensitive to threatening facial expressions", the study said.
Liberals are linked to larger anterior cingulate cortexes, a region that "monitor(s) uncertainty and conflicts", it said.
"Thus, it is conceivable that individuals with a larger ACC have a higher capacity to tolerate uncertainty and conflicts, allowing them to accept more liberal views."
It remains unclear whether the structural differences cause the divergence in political views, or are the effect of them.
But the central issue in determining political views appears to revolve around fear and how it affects a person.
"Our findings are consistent with the proposal that political orientation is associated with psychological processes for managing fear and uncertainty," the study said.
SOURCE.
The original journal article is here. It regurgitates a lot of other old myths too. But I have already written on them in the journals (e.g. here) so I will not repeat myself here.
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Government Shutdown 2011? – Things You Need To Know
Both sides are attempting to play political hardball. During the 2010 campaign, the Republicans promised to cut $100 billion from the budget for 2011 and they know that Tea Party activists are going to hold them accountable. The Democrats control the Senate and the presidency and they probably figure that when push comes to shove that many of the new, inexperienced Republicans in the House can be intimidated into giving in.
But in the end it really doesn't matter that much who wins this battle. The Republicans are proposing $61 billion in budget cuts which would cut the budget deficit for 2011 by only 3.8 percent. The Democrats are proposing $33 billion in budget cuts which would cut the budget deficit for 2011 by just 2.1 percent. Is that extra 1.7 percent really going to make a massive difference over the long run? Of course not.
But right now Republicans and Democrats are both in the mood for a fight, so we really might actually see a government shutdown.
If the government does shut down, it probably won't be for too long. The longest government shutdown of all time ended in early January 1996 and it lasted just 21 days.
So exactly what would happen if there is a government shutdown in 2011? If it does actually happen, the following are 16 things you will need to know....
#1 Hundreds of thousands of "non-essential" federal workers will be told to stay home during a government shutdown.
#2 Those in the military will not receive paychecks during a government shutdown but they will be required to keep performing their duties.
#3 The Obama administration is anticipating "significantly lower staffing levels" at the White House if a shutdown happens.
#4 Barack Obama will continue to be paid during a government shutdown.
#5 Congress will also be paid and will continue to operate at close to normal levels during a government shutdown.
#6 The Federal Reserve will continue to operate normally during a government shutdown. The Federal Reserve is not part of the U.S. government.
#7 In all probability, all government employees will eventually receive any pay that is missed during a government shutdown. During the 5 day U.S. government shutdown back in 1995, approximately 800,000 "non-essential" government employees were told not to come in to work. But eventually they all got paid retroactively anyway.
#8 During a government shutdown, the Department of Homeland Security will suspend operation of its e-Verify system. Employers will be unable to verify the immigration status of job applicants and that could have a substantial negative impact on hiring.
#9 The processing of small business loans and FHA mortgages will be delayed during a government shutdown.
#10 The U.S. Postal Service will not be affected by a government shutdown. You will continue to get your mail.
#11 According to the Social Security Administration, everyone that is currently receiving Social Security benefits will continue to receive those benefits during a shutdown. New applications will be delayed however.
#12 Medicare payments will continue during a government shutdown, but there will be a delay in processing new applications.
#13 During a government shutdown, the processing of paper tax returns by the IRS would be delayed.
#14 If there is a government shutdown, the processing of passport and visa applications could be seriously delayed. This could have a negative impact on the tourism industry.
#15 National parks, museums and tourist attractions will be shut down. According to the Washington Post, "about 500,000 visitors could be turned away this weekend alone from the National Zoo and the major Smithsonian museums on the Mall".
#16 The annual Cherry Blossom Festival parade in Washington D.C. that is scheduled for this weekend would be cancelled.
So why don't the two sides just compromise on a figure and get it over with? Well, it is just not that simple.
Barack Obama is pledging that he will not sign any budget bill that cuts funding for Planned Parenthood and the Environmental Protection Agency.
But to Republicans those are very important things. Many Republicans are sick and tired of large amounts of money going to the Planned Parenthood abortion mills and many Republicans are determined to take away the EPA’s authority to regulate the "greenhouse gases" that many Democrats believe are causing "global warming".
If the Republicans back down they risk alienating their Tea Party supporters. And we have already seen what happens to Republican politicians that cross the Tea Party. The truth is that many Tea Party activists are already upset with the compromises that Republican leaders have been making.
Originally, Republicans had pledged to slash $100 billion from the budget for this year. Then, they said that $61 billion was good enough because a large portion of the fiscal year was already gone.
Now that there are rumors that Boehner may be willing to reduce that figure even further, some Tea Party activists are becoming extremely upset. Tea Party Nation founder Judson Phillips posted the following message on his organization's website about a month ago.... "The Tea Party movement should find a candidate to run against John Boehner in 2012 and should set as a goal, to defeat in a primary, the sitting Speaker of the House of Representatives."
The truth is that this entire controversy shows how divided America is right now. The Democrat base is simply not going to accept cuts to Planned Parenthood or the EPA. The Tea Party base is simply not going to accept the small budget cuts that the Democrats are offering.
So who is going to give in? Whichever party does give in is going to have a lot of explaining to do to their base. But if neither side gives in we could be in for an extended government shutdown. It is certainly a fascinating game of "chicken" we have got going on. It is going to be extremely interesting to see who blinks first.
Personally I think it is going to be Boehner that is going to cave. If he can get the Democrats to agree to a budget cut figure in the neighborhood of 40 to 50 billion dollars I think he is going to grab it and try to "spin" it as a great victory for fiscal conservatives.
Unfortunately, the truth is that no matter who "wins" this current battle government debt is going to continue to soar. The Obama administration is projecting that the deficit for this year will be 1.6 trillion dollars. Even if we were to cut $100 billion from that number it would barely make a dent. The U.S. financial system is dying, and nothing that the Republicans or the Democrats are doing right now is going to change that.
SOURCE
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Your government will protect you
Air traffic controllers have been catching a lot of grief for sleeping on the job lately. But do you know what Transportation Security Administration officials have been doing -- or rather, not doing -- lately? A federal watchdog revealed this week that TSA's counterterrorism specialists failed to detect 16 separate jihad operatives who moved through target airports "on at least 23 different occasions." The name of the TSA monitoring program paying for all this flying-blind failure, I kid you not: SPOT.
Under the "Screening of Passengers by Observation Techniques" plan, TSA's designated behavior detection officers are supposed to closely watch travelers who pose potential security risks and who exhibit any number of appearances or activities "indicative of stress, fear, or deception." But long-entrenched, bipartisan American political correctness hampers the kind of effective, efficient national security profiling that Israeli airline security officials practice so well.
The result? TSA's snoozing SPOT-ters catch nobody -- for fear of being accused by the grievance lobby of singling anybody out.
Stephen Lord, who specializes in homeland security issues at the Government Accountability Office, reviewed Justice Department documents showing that "in December 2007 an individual who later pleaded guilty to providing material support to Somali terrorists boarded a plane at the Minneapolis-Saint Paul International Airport en route to Somalia. Similarly, in August 2008, an individual who later pleaded guilty to providing material support to al Qaeda boarded a plane at Newark Liberty International Airport en route to Pakistan to receive terrorist training to support his efforts to attack the New York subway system."
Other terror suspect travelers who slipped through the cracks have been subsequently tied to the 2008 Mumbai bombings; the plots to attack a Quantico, Va., Marine base and New York City infrastructure; and an attack by a Pakistani-trained American jihadi on an Afghanistan base.
Young. Male. Muslim. Traveling to al-Qaida friendly hot spots. How did these at-risk terror tourists escape scrutiny?
More HERE
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ELSEWHERE
WI: Prosser gains 7,500 votes, reversing unoffical election result: "In a political bombshell, the clerk in a Republican stronghold released new vote totals adding a net total of 7,582 new votes in the tight state Supreme Court race to Justice David Prosser, swinging the race significantly in his favor. Waukesha County Clerk Kathy Nickolaus said Thursday that she failed to save in her computer and consequently report 14,315 votes cast in the city of Brookfield, omitting them entirely in an unofficial tally released after Tuesday's election. The new totals give 10,859 more votes to Prosser from Brookfield and 3,456 more to Kloppenburg, she said."
Israel shells Gaza after anti-tank missile deliberately fired at school bus: "Israeli artillery and attack helicopters retaliated on Thursday after an anti-tank missile fired from the Gaza Strip hit an Israeli school bus, seriously wounding a teenage boy and injuring several others. Israeli forces immediately struck back, shelling various locations across the Gaza Strip, killing a 50-year-old man and wounding at least eight people including a 4-year-old girl, Palestinian medics said"
Shutdown can’t come soon enough: "In anticipation of the possibility that Congress will fail to 'reach a compromise' on a spending bill, CNNMoney reports that 'a shutdown is looking ever more likely.' Even in the event of a 'shutdown,' reminds the article, the federal government’s essential services, those 'operations necessary for the safety of human life and protection of property,' would carry on. It is perhaps telling, though, that government employees 'who protect … elements of the money and banking system' are among those 'essential' workers. In light of a potential 'shutdown,' the last of which came in 1995, we might take some time out to consider what the essence of the state really is, that is, what it is inherently designed to do in society."
Double standards on impeachment: "So The Nation was in favor of impeachment when the war was Bush's and it was useful to win votes for Dems in the 2006 elections. The Nation's editor was delighted with Holtzmann's article featured on the cover. But The Nation and the same editor now stand mute when the war and the violation of the Constitution are Obama's."
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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Thursday, April 07, 2011
Paul Ryan's Budget Proposal is Half the Answer
This morning, Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wisc.) unveiled a bold proposal to trim trillions off America's bloated budget. It represents the only serious proposal out there to get America's finances back in order, and as such he is to be congratulated for his courage and foresight.
However, as Margaret Thatcher found in the UK during the 1980s, spending is only half the battle. The nature of the bureaucratic beast is that it will expand again. That's why President Reagan's simplification of the Tax Code wore off, and we now have a far more complex tax code than we did before tax reform.
We therefore need a similarly comprehensive reform of the federal government that will address what might be termed the "supply side" of the federal bureaucracy, to prevent it getting in the way of an entrepreneur-led recovery.
This reform should include:
* Abolition of whole government departments that have no valid constitutional purpose, such as the Department of Education and the Department of Labor
* The rechartering of valid existing agencies as performance-based agencies that exist to serve the public, not hinder them
* Reform of federal pay and working conditions
* A reduction in the use of federal contracts and grants, to tackle the "shadow" public sector
* Introduction of a single, fair tax system and a new Taxpayers' Bill of Rights
* End labor unions' privileges that put them above the law
* Privatization of appropriate government functions
* and, above all: Genuine regulatory reform as proposed by Wayne Crews and Ryan Young.
A genuine public sector reform package must be as sweeping and comprehensive as Rep. Ryan's spending reform package. Only then will America be on the road to genuine, sustainable recovery.
SOURCE
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The Swift Death of the New Tone
Mary Katharine Ham
A child's handwritten sign that reads "We hate Scott Wacre" is seen taped to a wall in the rotunda during protests against budget cuts proposed by Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, R, at the state Capitol in Madison. The "new tone" the Left has been demanding from conservatives was nowhere to be seen during the union protests
Remember the days, in August of 2009, when conservatives merely raising their voices at health care town halls portended the sure destruction of the Republic? There were large numbers of conservatives gathering peacefully (and, yes, sometimes angrily) to express their discontent with Obama's health care law. The media decided these protests were threatening and dangerous on their face.
The mere gathering together of conservatives critical of the president caused Chris Matthews to sputter and Rachel Maddow to whine about the closed-minded, racist and surely violent crowds that would be the undoing of the Union. The only problem was there wasn't much violence to speak of.
During the most heated month of the health care uprising, when more than 500 town halls took place over one month across the country, there were exactly 10 instances of documented violence. Most of them were confined to the ripping of signs and minor tussles (though there were a handful of punches thrown), and seven of 10 incidents were perpetrated by ObamaCare supporters on protesters, according to photos, police reports and witnesses.
Nonetheless, the media kept up its "Climate of Hate" narrative through 2010, tsk-tsking over the tone of protest posters, often erroneously blaming tea partiers for Lyndon Larouche activists' Hitler signs and generally making a giant, scary deal out of the least errant word from any right-leaning protester in any place at any time.
There was evidence in 2009 that the stringent requirements for polite protest were not going to apply to everyone. Concurrent with the health care protests that made the media to tremble with their ferocity, the international community held the G20 gathering in Pittsburgh. There, a collection of liberal and anarchist protesters did approximately $50,000 of damage to local businesses, and 190 of them were arrested for blocking traffic and rolling trash bins and throwing rocks at police.
The CBS headline for that story? "Police fire gas on G20 protesters."
By 2011, the "violent right-wingers" narrative took its most irresponsible turn yet and blamed Sarah Palin's political speech for the shooting of Democratic Rep. Gabrielle Giffords in Tucson, Ariz. Giffords is recovering, praise God, after being shot in the head by a mentally ill man who had been fixated on her since at least 2007. To this day, there is no evidence that he was motivated by anyone's political rhetoric, martial words or imagery. The 28-page federal indictment of Jared Lee Loughner does not mention Palin's now-infamous crosshairs map as a cause of the incident because it wasn't.
Nonetheless, the country was called by all of national media to a time of soul-searching about our "tone." There should be a new tone, they said, and President Barack Obama echoed that in his Tucson speech saying our rhetoric should "honor" those who had been killed while engaging in our democratic process in that Safeway parking lot.
Several right-leaning pundits joined the call to civility, giving credence to the idea that rhetoric and Loughner's crime were somehow connected -- among them David Frum, Joe Scarborough and Jeb Bush.
But the new tone didn't last long. After all, it could last only until it was necessary for liberals to protest again, at which point all the rules imposed on conservative activists would be swiftly jettisoned.
Excerpt from the print edition of Townhall magazine
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Pelosi: The GOP's getting ready to starve six million seniors or something
I don't know which budget bill she's talking about, the 2011 one or Ryan's new one, but if it's the former than she's actually complaining here about a GOP budget that she could have prevented by passing a budget herself last year when she was Speaker. (Of course, with Democrats in control in the Senate and White House, any Mass Senior Starvation Program would require bipartisan support to pass now anyway.)
Anyway, get used to this: Warnings about grandma being forced to eat styrofoam peanuts and Fancy Feast because of heartless Republicans and their insane crusade for solvency will be a staple of Democratic talking points by next November, especially with the White House desperate to win back seniors alienated by ObamaCare.
Last week it was the GOP wanting kids abroad to die of malaria, this week it's our nation's elderly being made to eat out of garbage cans or else waste away, next week it'll be something to do with puppies. So let me repeat the question posed last week: If they're this worried about important programs falling through the cracks, shouldn't they want to come to the table and make some sort of deal on a long-term sustainable budget that protects welfare programs to some extent?
How does letting the country collapse fiscally, which would prompt truly draconian cuts under an austerity plan to rebalance the books, put more food on seniors' tables?
In fact, that's one of my core complaints with the GOP's "messaging" thus far, as bold as it's otherwise been. Thanks to Obama's appalling, irresponsible budget, the public is still under the illusion that we're debating whether to reform entitlements. We aren't. We're debating when to reform them - now, when we have the luxury of lengthy debate, or later under extreme duress.
I know how Nancy would solve this problem, but her answer is no more realistic politically than wanting to abolish Social Security and Medicare. So what's the magic Pelosi plan for keeping those seniors - and everyone else - fed and insured and averting a fiscal catastrophe, the part of the equation that somehow always gets lost in these heartbreaking tales of woe? She's the House leader for the Party Of Ideas, right? Let's hear some ideas.
SOURCE
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Time Magazine Moonbat Explains Why Koran Is More Sacred Than Bible
According to the liberal creed of moral relativism, all religions are the same, except that Christianity is bad because of the Crusades, and Islam is good because Arabs have slightly darker skin. Also, it's okay to burn Bibles, but burning the Koran is an affront to God. Time Magazine, the liberal establishment's outpost in the dentist's office, explains through "World Editor" Bobby Gauche to Hardball bench player Chuck Clod:
No doubt that received a hearty "Amen!" from the dhimmified moonbats in MSNBC's odious audience.
Hopey Change and "fundamental transformation" aside, this is still America. We can burn any book we like - even the one book our liberal overlords least want us to burn. If Muslims don't use it as a pretext to murder people, they'll find some other pretext, because violent intimidation is the only thing that keeps their evil cult alive.
SOURCE
A pretty poor understanding of Christian doctrine there. Many Christians believe that every word of the Bible is inspired by God and is hence unerring. Muslims believe exactly the same about the Koran. The different responses of Christians and Muslims to desecration of their sacred book is in the religions concerned. Christians preach a God of Love. Muslims preach a God of jihad and world domination
May I make a small linguistic point in that connection? Some people (mostly non-Christians, I think) say that fundamentalist Christians believe in an "inerrant" Bible. They do not. "Inerrant" means "not wandering about". An "errant" knight is not a knight who makes a lot of mistakes but simply a wandering knight. "Errant" is ultimately derived from the Latin "iter", a walk or a journey. Compare "itinerant". The Christian belief is in an "unerring" Bible, a Bible that makes no mistakes.
Dictionaries report the mistaken usage these days but it is still a mistake -- JR
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ELSEWHERE
NV: ACORN pleads guilty in voter fraud case: "The defunct political advocacy group ACORN has pleaded guilty in a case alleging that canvassers were illegally paid to register Nevada voters during the 2008 presidential campaign. The Las Vegas Review-Journal reported Wednesday that ACORN defense attorney Lisa Rasmussen entered the guilty plea to one count of felony compensation for registration of voters."
Obama's first 2012 campaign event: Facebook "meeting" on Hitler's birthday, Columbine anniversary: "In 2008 thousands of Americans turned out to mass rallies in support of Barack Obama's presidential campaign. And the President has just announced plans for his first big rally of his re-election bid as he launches his run for a second term of office in 2012. But this time the first major gathering of the campaign is being held online as President Obama invites his Facebook friends to attend a '`virtual meeting.'"
How can anyone take this seriously?: "Republican fiscal conservatism is akin to a 500-pound-man declaring aloud in January that he is determined to lose weight, and so he promises to forgo exactly half a glass of eggnog on Thanksgiving - and if you protest, and insist he drink the whole glass, he will have none of it, because he has made up his mind to lose weight and refuses to compromise. This is the state of modern American politics."
Solis's pro-union bias: "Speaking to the Democratic National Committee (DNC) Winter Meeting in Washington, D.C., Labor Secretary Hilda Solis admitted she was biased toward unions. Unions only account for 11.9 percent of the workforce, but Solis' favoritism puts them ahead of the other 88 percent of the American workers."
What if the government shut down... and nobody cared?: "Everyone keeps talking about a possible government shut down on Friday, April 8 as though it is a bad thing. Someone will get the blame. The president or the Republicans or Democrats will suffer at the polls. The planets will fall out of alignment. Reporters might run out of things to pontificate upon. Listening to pundits one gets the impression that there will be a federal tsunami washing away life as we know it; chaos in the streets; weeping and gnashing of teeth for all. But one wonders, how bad would it really be for government to call in sick for a few days?"
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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This morning, Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wisc.) unveiled a bold proposal to trim trillions off America's bloated budget. It represents the only serious proposal out there to get America's finances back in order, and as such he is to be congratulated for his courage and foresight.
However, as Margaret Thatcher found in the UK during the 1980s, spending is only half the battle. The nature of the bureaucratic beast is that it will expand again. That's why President Reagan's simplification of the Tax Code wore off, and we now have a far more complex tax code than we did before tax reform.
We therefore need a similarly comprehensive reform of the federal government that will address what might be termed the "supply side" of the federal bureaucracy, to prevent it getting in the way of an entrepreneur-led recovery.
This reform should include:
* Abolition of whole government departments that have no valid constitutional purpose, such as the Department of Education and the Department of Labor
* The rechartering of valid existing agencies as performance-based agencies that exist to serve the public, not hinder them
* Reform of federal pay and working conditions
* A reduction in the use of federal contracts and grants, to tackle the "shadow" public sector
* Introduction of a single, fair tax system and a new Taxpayers' Bill of Rights
* End labor unions' privileges that put them above the law
* Privatization of appropriate government functions
* and, above all: Genuine regulatory reform as proposed by Wayne Crews and Ryan Young.
A genuine public sector reform package must be as sweeping and comprehensive as Rep. Ryan's spending reform package. Only then will America be on the road to genuine, sustainable recovery.
SOURCE
***********************
The Swift Death of the New Tone
Mary Katharine Ham
A child's handwritten sign that reads "We hate Scott Wacre" is seen taped to a wall in the rotunda during protests against budget cuts proposed by Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, R, at the state Capitol in Madison. The "new tone" the Left has been demanding from conservatives was nowhere to be seen during the union protests
Remember the days, in August of 2009, when conservatives merely raising their voices at health care town halls portended the sure destruction of the Republic? There were large numbers of conservatives gathering peacefully (and, yes, sometimes angrily) to express their discontent with Obama's health care law. The media decided these protests were threatening and dangerous on their face.
The mere gathering together of conservatives critical of the president caused Chris Matthews to sputter and Rachel Maddow to whine about the closed-minded, racist and surely violent crowds that would be the undoing of the Union. The only problem was there wasn't much violence to speak of.
During the most heated month of the health care uprising, when more than 500 town halls took place over one month across the country, there were exactly 10 instances of documented violence. Most of them were confined to the ripping of signs and minor tussles (though there were a handful of punches thrown), and seven of 10 incidents were perpetrated by ObamaCare supporters on protesters, according to photos, police reports and witnesses.
Nonetheless, the media kept up its "Climate of Hate" narrative through 2010, tsk-tsking over the tone of protest posters, often erroneously blaming tea partiers for Lyndon Larouche activists' Hitler signs and generally making a giant, scary deal out of the least errant word from any right-leaning protester in any place at any time.
There was evidence in 2009 that the stringent requirements for polite protest were not going to apply to everyone. Concurrent with the health care protests that made the media to tremble with their ferocity, the international community held the G20 gathering in Pittsburgh. There, a collection of liberal and anarchist protesters did approximately $50,000 of damage to local businesses, and 190 of them were arrested for blocking traffic and rolling trash bins and throwing rocks at police.
The CBS headline for that story? "Police fire gas on G20 protesters."
By 2011, the "violent right-wingers" narrative took its most irresponsible turn yet and blamed Sarah Palin's political speech for the shooting of Democratic Rep. Gabrielle Giffords in Tucson, Ariz. Giffords is recovering, praise God, after being shot in the head by a mentally ill man who had been fixated on her since at least 2007. To this day, there is no evidence that he was motivated by anyone's political rhetoric, martial words or imagery. The 28-page federal indictment of Jared Lee Loughner does not mention Palin's now-infamous crosshairs map as a cause of the incident because it wasn't.
Nonetheless, the country was called by all of national media to a time of soul-searching about our "tone." There should be a new tone, they said, and President Barack Obama echoed that in his Tucson speech saying our rhetoric should "honor" those who had been killed while engaging in our democratic process in that Safeway parking lot.
Several right-leaning pundits joined the call to civility, giving credence to the idea that rhetoric and Loughner's crime were somehow connected -- among them David Frum, Joe Scarborough and Jeb Bush.
But the new tone didn't last long. After all, it could last only until it was necessary for liberals to protest again, at which point all the rules imposed on conservative activists would be swiftly jettisoned.
Excerpt from the print edition of Townhall magazine
********************
Pelosi: The GOP's getting ready to starve six million seniors or something
I don't know which budget bill she's talking about, the 2011 one or Ryan's new one, but if it's the former than she's actually complaining here about a GOP budget that she could have prevented by passing a budget herself last year when she was Speaker. (Of course, with Democrats in control in the Senate and White House, any Mass Senior Starvation Program would require bipartisan support to pass now anyway.)
Anyway, get used to this: Warnings about grandma being forced to eat styrofoam peanuts and Fancy Feast because of heartless Republicans and their insane crusade for solvency will be a staple of Democratic talking points by next November, especially with the White House desperate to win back seniors alienated by ObamaCare.
Last week it was the GOP wanting kids abroad to die of malaria, this week it's our nation's elderly being made to eat out of garbage cans or else waste away, next week it'll be something to do with puppies. So let me repeat the question posed last week: If they're this worried about important programs falling through the cracks, shouldn't they want to come to the table and make some sort of deal on a long-term sustainable budget that protects welfare programs to some extent?
How does letting the country collapse fiscally, which would prompt truly draconian cuts under an austerity plan to rebalance the books, put more food on seniors' tables?
In fact, that's one of my core complaints with the GOP's "messaging" thus far, as bold as it's otherwise been. Thanks to Obama's appalling, irresponsible budget, the public is still under the illusion that we're debating whether to reform entitlements. We aren't. We're debating when to reform them - now, when we have the luxury of lengthy debate, or later under extreme duress.
I know how Nancy would solve this problem, but her answer is no more realistic politically than wanting to abolish Social Security and Medicare. So what's the magic Pelosi plan for keeping those seniors - and everyone else - fed and insured and averting a fiscal catastrophe, the part of the equation that somehow always gets lost in these heartbreaking tales of woe? She's the House leader for the Party Of Ideas, right? Let's hear some ideas.
SOURCE
**********************
Time Magazine Moonbat Explains Why Koran Is More Sacred Than Bible
According to the liberal creed of moral relativism, all religions are the same, except that Christianity is bad because of the Crusades, and Islam is good because Arabs have slightly darker skin. Also, it's okay to burn Bibles, but burning the Koran is an affront to God. Time Magazine, the liberal establishment's outpost in the dentist's office, explains through "World Editor" Bobby Gauche to Hardball bench player Chuck Clod:
GHOSH: The thing to keep in mind that's very important here is that the Koran to Muslims, it is not - it is not the same as the Bible to Christians. The Bible is a book written by men. It is acknowledged by Christians that it is written by men. It's the story of Jesus.
TODD: Yes.
GHOSH: But the Koran, if you are a believer, if you're a Muslim, the Koran is directly the word of God, not written by man. It is transcribed, is directly the word of God. That makes it sacred in a way that it's hard to understand if you're not Muslim. So the act of burning a Koran is much more - potentially much, much more inflammatory than -
TODD: Directly attacking - directly attacking God.
GHOSH: - than if you were to burn a - burn a Bible.
TODD: Directly attacking God.
No doubt that received a hearty "Amen!" from the dhimmified moonbats in MSNBC's odious audience.
Hopey Change and "fundamental transformation" aside, this is still America. We can burn any book we like - even the one book our liberal overlords least want us to burn. If Muslims don't use it as a pretext to murder people, they'll find some other pretext, because violent intimidation is the only thing that keeps their evil cult alive.
SOURCE
A pretty poor understanding of Christian doctrine there. Many Christians believe that every word of the Bible is inspired by God and is hence unerring. Muslims believe exactly the same about the Koran. The different responses of Christians and Muslims to desecration of their sacred book is in the religions concerned. Christians preach a God of Love. Muslims preach a God of jihad and world domination
May I make a small linguistic point in that connection? Some people (mostly non-Christians, I think) say that fundamentalist Christians believe in an "inerrant" Bible. They do not. "Inerrant" means "not wandering about". An "errant" knight is not a knight who makes a lot of mistakes but simply a wandering knight. "Errant" is ultimately derived from the Latin "iter", a walk or a journey. Compare "itinerant". The Christian belief is in an "unerring" Bible, a Bible that makes no mistakes.
Dictionaries report the mistaken usage these days but it is still a mistake -- JR
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ELSEWHERE
NV: ACORN pleads guilty in voter fraud case: "The defunct political advocacy group ACORN has pleaded guilty in a case alleging that canvassers were illegally paid to register Nevada voters during the 2008 presidential campaign. The Las Vegas Review-Journal reported Wednesday that ACORN defense attorney Lisa Rasmussen entered the guilty plea to one count of felony compensation for registration of voters."
Obama's first 2012 campaign event: Facebook "meeting" on Hitler's birthday, Columbine anniversary: "In 2008 thousands of Americans turned out to mass rallies in support of Barack Obama's presidential campaign. And the President has just announced plans for his first big rally of his re-election bid as he launches his run for a second term of office in 2012. But this time the first major gathering of the campaign is being held online as President Obama invites his Facebook friends to attend a '`virtual meeting.'"
How can anyone take this seriously?: "Republican fiscal conservatism is akin to a 500-pound-man declaring aloud in January that he is determined to lose weight, and so he promises to forgo exactly half a glass of eggnog on Thanksgiving - and if you protest, and insist he drink the whole glass, he will have none of it, because he has made up his mind to lose weight and refuses to compromise. This is the state of modern American politics."
Solis's pro-union bias: "Speaking to the Democratic National Committee (DNC) Winter Meeting in Washington, D.C., Labor Secretary Hilda Solis admitted she was biased toward unions. Unions only account for 11.9 percent of the workforce, but Solis' favoritism puts them ahead of the other 88 percent of the American workers."
What if the government shut down... and nobody cared?: "Everyone keeps talking about a possible government shut down on Friday, April 8 as though it is a bad thing. Someone will get the blame. The president or the Republicans or Democrats will suffer at the polls. The planets will fall out of alignment. Reporters might run out of things to pontificate upon. Listening to pundits one gets the impression that there will be a federal tsunami washing away life as we know it; chaos in the streets; weeping and gnashing of teeth for all. But one wonders, how bad would it really be for government to call in sick for a few days?"
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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Is God a racist?
Orthodox Jews seem to claim that God made a covenant with them as a nation, as a particular genetic group or race. I doubt that. From Moses on right through the Hebrew prophets, Yahveh (the name of God in the Hebrew Bible, sometimes translated as "Jehovah" in English Bibles) poured out imprecations and condemnations on the Israelites if they strayed from the true religion. It would seem clear that Yahveh defined his people by their RELIGION rather than by their race.
So how does that leave modern Jews in the eyes of Yahveh? As an atheist, I am in a poor position to say but if we assume his existence and read his words in the Bible, it does not look too good. They obey the Torah only selectively (they no longer put homosexuals to death, for instance) and they have not rebuilt the Temple in Jerusalem despite being in a good position to do so.
Additionally they have done the exact opposite of what he intended regarding his name. We read in Psalm 83:18 "That men may know that thou, whose name alone is JEHOVAH, art the most high over all the earth" (KJV). Yahveh clearly had big ambitions for his name and regarded himself as ruling not only the Israelites but all the earth. And even in the Ten Commandments, he stressed the importance and dignity of his name -- forbidding disrespectful use of it.
Yet what did Israelites, starting from around 200 AD or earlier, do? Far from proclaiming Yahveh's mighty name worldwide, they stopped using it altogether! The Devil must have had his best laugh ever when that happened! And modern Jews go one better and render even the Germanic word "god" as "G-d". I can't see Yahveh being pleased with that! No wonder he let the Romans boot the Israelites out of Israel
So has Yahveh transferred his support to the Christians? It's possible. On numbers alone it would seem so. The descendants (spiritual descendants?) of Abraham were promised that they would be a multitude throughout the earth. "Abraham" means "father of a multitude" and we read: "And he brought him [Abraham] forth abroad, and said, Look now toward heaven, and tell the stars, if thou be able to number them: and he said unto him, So shall thy seed be". (Gen 15:5).
The Christians are that multitude but Jews are not. On best estimates there are even 200 million Christians in China these days. So whom does this text best fit? Jews or Christians: "I will make of thee a great nation, and I will bless thee, and make thy name great; and thou shalt be a blessing: And I will bless them that bless thee, and curse him that curseth thee: and in thee shall all families of the earth be blessed. (Genesis 12:2-3)". It's a matter of opinion, of course but it is Christians who have both the numbers and the influence. And has not Christian civilization been a great blessing to the whole world? And "Jew" is much more often a curse than a blessing.
And remember that respect for his law was what Yahveh cared about. He even provided a nifty executive summary of it (or what scientists would call an "Abstract"). I refer of course to the Ten Commandments. And Christians are very zealous about teaching the Ten Commandments. And they distribute Bibles worldwide that contain the Torah in full.
What would I know? Nothing, perhaps. But that is what I see in the Hebrew scriptures. I probably should give theology up.
Update:
OK. The post above was a bit facetious and that was probably bad of me. Of greater concern is that the post may be seen as anti-Jewish and pro-Christian. It is neither. I give Christian theology a hard time too -- as you can see from my Scripture blog. It is just that as an atheist I am in a position to read the original texts without religious preconceptions and I like to do that. Doing that does produce some awkward conclusions at times, though.
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A rather good news roundup from Fred Meekins
David Frum has mocked Glenn Beck from the standpoint of the 295 million Americans that don’t watch Beck. Wonder if Frum realizes that the number having no idea who David Frum is surpasses even that figure?
Al Sharpton held a rally against the Congressional investigation into radical Islam. Amazing dupes such as him fail to realize he will be among the first eliminated should an Islamist revolution (or any kind of leftist revolution for that matter) ever takes place.
Even if the government gave every ghetto youth a laptop and an IPOD as Jesse Jackson Jr. suggests, they wouldn’t use the devices for educational purposes.
Obama is having his own beer brewed at the White House. Guess it is revealed after all that the thing wrong with homebrewing is not so much the health concerns but rather that the government might not get its cut if you sell it to some friends or neighbors. You let it out that you brew your own beer and see if they don’t torch your place like the Waco compound in the name of public safety.
A true cowboy wouldn’t want the federal government to finance their poetry festival.
If you think it is mean spirited to cut Public Broadcasting, just think how mean spirited it will be when Americans are forced to live in conditions reminiscent of Mel Gibson’s “Mad Max” or Kevin Costner’s “The Postman”.
Castro’s Twitter account breaks 100,000 followers. His regime heralds it as the first Cuban themed account to reach that plateau. Most Cubans probably don’t even have access to electricity and any with Twitter accounts are probably sent to labor camps or executed before being allowed to attract such a following.
A state park has celebrated Pancho Villa’s attack. Only in America are those out to destroy us lavished with government funds and public accolades.
Representative Keith Ellison broke down during Congressional hearings into radical Islam in recounting the plight of a Muslim rescue worker that perished in the attack on the World Trade Center. Wonder if Rep. Keith Ellison shed any tears for any non-Mulsims that perished on 9/11. Rep. Ellison notes 29 Muslims died in New York on 9/11. I guess adherents of other creeds perishing that day aren’t worthy of this esteemed legislator’s mention. With the name “Keith Ellison”, it’s doubtful the Minnesota representative was born a Muslim. Wonder if a Muslim converting to Christianity would even be allowed to remain alive in an Islamist society much less serve in its legislature. Wonder how many tears Keith Ellison has shed over Muslims killed for converting to Christianity. How come its an emotional act of courage for Ellison to weep but a lack of manhood when the Speaker of the House sheds tears?
Religious fanatics have already categorized the Japanese earthquake as God’s judgment and insinuated the victims got what they deserved. Unless one of the victims was conducting seismic warfare experiments that got the best of them, isn’t such a conclusion a bit presumptuous? It’s not like the Almighty promptly issued a press release as to why this particular tragedy was allowed to occur.
A British mother claims her premature baby was tossed into a room to die. Struggling in his mother’s arms as life slipped from his one-pound body, hospital staff did nothing (as stipulated by hospital policy) to save his life. Apparently there is no money to save you if you have a solid English name like “Godwin” as did this child. However, no doubt bags of cash will be tossed your way if your name is “Akmed” or “Hasan” and intend to defecate all over the Union Jack.
A Florida school has implemented a virtual police state, including gastronomical prohibitions and low tech breathalyzer checks, over the peanut allergy of a single student. Wouldn’t responsible parents instead simply homeschool the child, acquire a tutor, or send their offspring to a special facility? So if a school can ban peanuts because even the aroma of this particular legume might send a single student into fatal apoplexy, if American students are sickened by the stench of the swill eaten by foreigners, will these kinds of victuals be banned as well?
Wasn’t aware votive candles could be eaten. If not, why are they in the aisle listed as “Hispanic Food”? I don’t remember there being an aisle demarcated as “Redneck Food” dedicated to Anglo dietary peculiarities.
On the 3/24/11 episode of “Radio Liberty with Stan Montieth”, privacy advocate Katherine Albrecht warned that electricity rates could go as high as $1,000 per month for those not upgrading their appliances and utilities to “smart grid” technologies.
Farrakhan explicitly insists that Americans (especially the White ones which his sect believes are the result of an ancient experiment in genetic engineering) are beasts and not human. This is so when his minions start killing, in their eyes it won’t be construed as murder since that is a crime committed against human beings and not animals.
Scientists from Harvard and MIT are developing instruments to confirm their preconceived hypothesis that life on Earth actually began on Mars. Yet if one believes the Genesis account as literal, they are laughed out of academia. This is being done for no other reason than to lay the foundation for declaring humanity the greatest invasive species of them all and to justify what will become history’s most notorious campaign of genocide. Mark 13:20 reads, “And except that the Lord had shortened those days, no flesh should be saved: but for the elect’s sake, whom he hath chosen, he hath shortened the days.”
SOURCE
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View of U.S. Shapes Lib/Con Divide
Michael Medved
An indignant Democrat of my acquaintance accuses conservatives of hypocrisy when they criticize President Obama for acting with caution and restraint in response to crisis. He accurately points out that caution and restraint represent core conservative virtues, and that most leaders on the right ripped the president during his first two years for pushing too fast for transformational change. How, then, can they attack him now for reacting too modestly, too slowly to Libya, Egypt, Japan, oil prices, or anything else?
Beyond fleeting politics of the moment, this challenge brings into focus a single explanation to two persistent mysteries:
First, how can conservatives passionately demand a smaller role for the federal government in every aspect of American life, while simultaneously insisting that Washington should play a more activist part in world affairs?
Second, why should liberals who trust the federal bureaucracy to address nearly all our domestic problems feel such powerful, palpable reluctance for that same government to assume a leadership role in the international community?
The answer to both questions centers on contrasting notions of American exceptionalism.
Nearly all citizens of the U.S. believe that our country counts as unparalleled and set apart from the rest of the world. The right views America as exceptionally blessed and righteous — chosen by God (or fate, if you prefer) to inspire humanity with distinctive ideals of liberty, self rule and free markets. The left, on the other hand, expresses an intensifying tendency to see the U.S. as exceptionally guilty (for slavery, "genocide" against Native Americans and arrogant imperialism) and exceptionally backward when it comes to "social justice." Progressives never tire of reminding us that the United States lacks the welfare state guarantees that characterize other wealthy nations, and that it tolerates a vast gap between rich and poor.
These sharply conflicting world views (or nation views, at least) inform dramatically different approaches to domestic and foreign challenges.
For conservatives, sweeping federal action is unnecessary and counterproductive when it comes to economic or social problems here in the USA. On the economy, they argue that normal business cycles would bring recovery if only government got out of the way. They point to more than a dozen downturns, all of which quickly gave way to powerful spurts of growth — except for the Great Depression which, according to the right, FDR needlessly extended with his wasteful New Deal. Republicans maintain an almost mystical faith in the American people and the powers of the market. That's why the only federal reform programs they promote with a true sense of urgency involve tax cuts, allowing more resources to remain in control of enlightened private citizens who can use those assets to repair problems more effectively than bumbling bureaucrats.
When it comes to the rest of the world, however, the right maintains far greater skepticism. The so-called community of nations (a musty euphemism that seems almost laughable today) can't heal itself without American direction and assistance. We tried leaving the world alone to solve its own problems in the isolationist 1920s and '30s, but then had to face Hitlerism and Stalinism, along with 60 million corpses in World War II.
Conservatives passionately embrace the idea that the United States is better than the rest of the world, so the American people need a strong hand from Washington far less than do beleaguered hordes in less fortunate societies around the world.
Progressives also believe that the U.S. stands out from other nations, but they tacitly or explicitly assume that we distinguish ourselves in a negative sense — encouraging greed, environmental pillage, materialism and neocolonialism. This vision of the United States gives rise to the claim that long-suffering citizens of this republic need decisive, reformist leadership from the nation's capital in order to drag the benighted USA into the 21st century, at the same time that the nation will fare better in the international arena by following the lead of multilateral organizations (as in dealing with Libya) and learning from governments with more advanced ideas.
These radically contrasting attitudes toward America and its position in the world shape the polarization at the center of today's politics. The fundamental questions that divide left and right nearly everywhere concern assessments of the United States. It's those questions that determine the point on the spectrum where individuals locate themselves:
•Is America a gift or a threat to the rest of humanity?
•Do American values count as nobler — or more dysfunctional — than, say, European values?
•Should the United States continue to lead the world or would the planet benefit from swaggering Americans learning from more civilized societies of Europe and elsewhere?
Given the sharp disagreements about the very nature of our distinctive national identity, it's not surprising that conservatives want less Washington interference at home and more Washington determination abroad, while liberals hope for less influence by the American government overseas along with a more muscular federal role in reshaping dysfunctional realities of the homeland.
In this context, Barack Obama is perfectly consistent in demonstrating aggressive leadership in stateside politics but a timorous, reluctant role in foreign affairs. His conservative critics also apply their own philosophy with unassailable coherence by demanding more American power abroad but less meddling with citizens here at home.
SOURCE
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ELSEWHERE
A good reason to learn English: "When an elderly patient asked Isabela to hand her three tablets, the home health attendant froze. The patient had read the label, which had been translated from English to Spanish, and it instructed her to take three tablets every time she took the medicine. Isabela, who did not want her last name used, knew from experience -- and a phone call to the doctor confirmed her hunch -- that the correct instruction should have been to take one tablet three times a day. The medication label, it turns out, had been wrongly translated."
Ryan budget: A huge opportunity to improve healthcare: "On Tuesday, House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan, R-Wis., will release a budget blueprint that tackles the three big health care challenges facing the federal budget — ObamaCare, Medicare and Medicaid — with a strategy of repeal, vouchers and block grants. Done properly, those steps would simultaneously improve health care and help balance the budget within a decade."
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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Orthodox Jews seem to claim that God made a covenant with them as a nation, as a particular genetic group or race. I doubt that. From Moses on right through the Hebrew prophets, Yahveh (the name of God in the Hebrew Bible, sometimes translated as "Jehovah" in English Bibles) poured out imprecations and condemnations on the Israelites if they strayed from the true religion. It would seem clear that Yahveh defined his people by their RELIGION rather than by their race.
So how does that leave modern Jews in the eyes of Yahveh? As an atheist, I am in a poor position to say but if we assume his existence and read his words in the Bible, it does not look too good. They obey the Torah only selectively (they no longer put homosexuals to death, for instance) and they have not rebuilt the Temple in Jerusalem despite being in a good position to do so.
Additionally they have done the exact opposite of what he intended regarding his name. We read in Psalm 83:18 "That men may know that thou, whose name alone is JEHOVAH, art the most high over all the earth" (KJV). Yahveh clearly had big ambitions for his name and regarded himself as ruling not only the Israelites but all the earth. And even in the Ten Commandments, he stressed the importance and dignity of his name -- forbidding disrespectful use of it.
Yet what did Israelites, starting from around 200 AD or earlier, do? Far from proclaiming Yahveh's mighty name worldwide, they stopped using it altogether! The Devil must have had his best laugh ever when that happened! And modern Jews go one better and render even the Germanic word "god" as "G-d". I can't see Yahveh being pleased with that! No wonder he let the Romans boot the Israelites out of Israel
So has Yahveh transferred his support to the Christians? It's possible. On numbers alone it would seem so. The descendants (spiritual descendants?) of Abraham were promised that they would be a multitude throughout the earth. "Abraham" means "father of a multitude" and we read: "And he brought him [Abraham] forth abroad, and said, Look now toward heaven, and tell the stars, if thou be able to number them: and he said unto him, So shall thy seed be". (Gen 15:5).
The Christians are that multitude but Jews are not. On best estimates there are even 200 million Christians in China these days. So whom does this text best fit? Jews or Christians: "I will make of thee a great nation, and I will bless thee, and make thy name great; and thou shalt be a blessing: And I will bless them that bless thee, and curse him that curseth thee: and in thee shall all families of the earth be blessed. (Genesis 12:2-3)". It's a matter of opinion, of course but it is Christians who have both the numbers and the influence. And has not Christian civilization been a great blessing to the whole world? And "Jew" is much more often a curse than a blessing.
And remember that respect for his law was what Yahveh cared about. He even provided a nifty executive summary of it (or what scientists would call an "Abstract"). I refer of course to the Ten Commandments. And Christians are very zealous about teaching the Ten Commandments. And they distribute Bibles worldwide that contain the Torah in full.
What would I know? Nothing, perhaps. But that is what I see in the Hebrew scriptures. I probably should give theology up.
Update:
OK. The post above was a bit facetious and that was probably bad of me. Of greater concern is that the post may be seen as anti-Jewish and pro-Christian. It is neither. I give Christian theology a hard time too -- as you can see from my Scripture blog. It is just that as an atheist I am in a position to read the original texts without religious preconceptions and I like to do that. Doing that does produce some awkward conclusions at times, though.
************************
A rather good news roundup from Fred Meekins
David Frum has mocked Glenn Beck from the standpoint of the 295 million Americans that don’t watch Beck. Wonder if Frum realizes that the number having no idea who David Frum is surpasses even that figure?
Al Sharpton held a rally against the Congressional investigation into radical Islam. Amazing dupes such as him fail to realize he will be among the first eliminated should an Islamist revolution (or any kind of leftist revolution for that matter) ever takes place.
Even if the government gave every ghetto youth a laptop and an IPOD as Jesse Jackson Jr. suggests, they wouldn’t use the devices for educational purposes.
Obama is having his own beer brewed at the White House. Guess it is revealed after all that the thing wrong with homebrewing is not so much the health concerns but rather that the government might not get its cut if you sell it to some friends or neighbors. You let it out that you brew your own beer and see if they don’t torch your place like the Waco compound in the name of public safety.
A true cowboy wouldn’t want the federal government to finance their poetry festival.
If you think it is mean spirited to cut Public Broadcasting, just think how mean spirited it will be when Americans are forced to live in conditions reminiscent of Mel Gibson’s “Mad Max” or Kevin Costner’s “The Postman”.
Castro’s Twitter account breaks 100,000 followers. His regime heralds it as the first Cuban themed account to reach that plateau. Most Cubans probably don’t even have access to electricity and any with Twitter accounts are probably sent to labor camps or executed before being allowed to attract such a following.
A state park has celebrated Pancho Villa’s attack. Only in America are those out to destroy us lavished with government funds and public accolades.
Representative Keith Ellison broke down during Congressional hearings into radical Islam in recounting the plight of a Muslim rescue worker that perished in the attack on the World Trade Center. Wonder if Rep. Keith Ellison shed any tears for any non-Mulsims that perished on 9/11. Rep. Ellison notes 29 Muslims died in New York on 9/11. I guess adherents of other creeds perishing that day aren’t worthy of this esteemed legislator’s mention. With the name “Keith Ellison”, it’s doubtful the Minnesota representative was born a Muslim. Wonder if a Muslim converting to Christianity would even be allowed to remain alive in an Islamist society much less serve in its legislature. Wonder how many tears Keith Ellison has shed over Muslims killed for converting to Christianity. How come its an emotional act of courage for Ellison to weep but a lack of manhood when the Speaker of the House sheds tears?
Religious fanatics have already categorized the Japanese earthquake as God’s judgment and insinuated the victims got what they deserved. Unless one of the victims was conducting seismic warfare experiments that got the best of them, isn’t such a conclusion a bit presumptuous? It’s not like the Almighty promptly issued a press release as to why this particular tragedy was allowed to occur.
A British mother claims her premature baby was tossed into a room to die. Struggling in his mother’s arms as life slipped from his one-pound body, hospital staff did nothing (as stipulated by hospital policy) to save his life. Apparently there is no money to save you if you have a solid English name like “Godwin” as did this child. However, no doubt bags of cash will be tossed your way if your name is “Akmed” or “Hasan” and intend to defecate all over the Union Jack.
A Florida school has implemented a virtual police state, including gastronomical prohibitions and low tech breathalyzer checks, over the peanut allergy of a single student. Wouldn’t responsible parents instead simply homeschool the child, acquire a tutor, or send their offspring to a special facility? So if a school can ban peanuts because even the aroma of this particular legume might send a single student into fatal apoplexy, if American students are sickened by the stench of the swill eaten by foreigners, will these kinds of victuals be banned as well?
Wasn’t aware votive candles could be eaten. If not, why are they in the aisle listed as “Hispanic Food”? I don’t remember there being an aisle demarcated as “Redneck Food” dedicated to Anglo dietary peculiarities.
On the 3/24/11 episode of “Radio Liberty with Stan Montieth”, privacy advocate Katherine Albrecht warned that electricity rates could go as high as $1,000 per month for those not upgrading their appliances and utilities to “smart grid” technologies.
Farrakhan explicitly insists that Americans (especially the White ones which his sect believes are the result of an ancient experiment in genetic engineering) are beasts and not human. This is so when his minions start killing, in their eyes it won’t be construed as murder since that is a crime committed against human beings and not animals.
Scientists from Harvard and MIT are developing instruments to confirm their preconceived hypothesis that life on Earth actually began on Mars. Yet if one believes the Genesis account as literal, they are laughed out of academia. This is being done for no other reason than to lay the foundation for declaring humanity the greatest invasive species of them all and to justify what will become history’s most notorious campaign of genocide. Mark 13:20 reads, “And except that the Lord had shortened those days, no flesh should be saved: but for the elect’s sake, whom he hath chosen, he hath shortened the days.”
SOURCE
**********************
View of U.S. Shapes Lib/Con Divide
Michael Medved
An indignant Democrat of my acquaintance accuses conservatives of hypocrisy when they criticize President Obama for acting with caution and restraint in response to crisis. He accurately points out that caution and restraint represent core conservative virtues, and that most leaders on the right ripped the president during his first two years for pushing too fast for transformational change. How, then, can they attack him now for reacting too modestly, too slowly to Libya, Egypt, Japan, oil prices, or anything else?
Beyond fleeting politics of the moment, this challenge brings into focus a single explanation to two persistent mysteries:
First, how can conservatives passionately demand a smaller role for the federal government in every aspect of American life, while simultaneously insisting that Washington should play a more activist part in world affairs?
Second, why should liberals who trust the federal bureaucracy to address nearly all our domestic problems feel such powerful, palpable reluctance for that same government to assume a leadership role in the international community?
The answer to both questions centers on contrasting notions of American exceptionalism.
Nearly all citizens of the U.S. believe that our country counts as unparalleled and set apart from the rest of the world. The right views America as exceptionally blessed and righteous — chosen by God (or fate, if you prefer) to inspire humanity with distinctive ideals of liberty, self rule and free markets. The left, on the other hand, expresses an intensifying tendency to see the U.S. as exceptionally guilty (for slavery, "genocide" against Native Americans and arrogant imperialism) and exceptionally backward when it comes to "social justice." Progressives never tire of reminding us that the United States lacks the welfare state guarantees that characterize other wealthy nations, and that it tolerates a vast gap between rich and poor.
These sharply conflicting world views (or nation views, at least) inform dramatically different approaches to domestic and foreign challenges.
For conservatives, sweeping federal action is unnecessary and counterproductive when it comes to economic or social problems here in the USA. On the economy, they argue that normal business cycles would bring recovery if only government got out of the way. They point to more than a dozen downturns, all of which quickly gave way to powerful spurts of growth — except for the Great Depression which, according to the right, FDR needlessly extended with his wasteful New Deal. Republicans maintain an almost mystical faith in the American people and the powers of the market. That's why the only federal reform programs they promote with a true sense of urgency involve tax cuts, allowing more resources to remain in control of enlightened private citizens who can use those assets to repair problems more effectively than bumbling bureaucrats.
When it comes to the rest of the world, however, the right maintains far greater skepticism. The so-called community of nations (a musty euphemism that seems almost laughable today) can't heal itself without American direction and assistance. We tried leaving the world alone to solve its own problems in the isolationist 1920s and '30s, but then had to face Hitlerism and Stalinism, along with 60 million corpses in World War II.
Conservatives passionately embrace the idea that the United States is better than the rest of the world, so the American people need a strong hand from Washington far less than do beleaguered hordes in less fortunate societies around the world.
Progressives also believe that the U.S. stands out from other nations, but they tacitly or explicitly assume that we distinguish ourselves in a negative sense — encouraging greed, environmental pillage, materialism and neocolonialism. This vision of the United States gives rise to the claim that long-suffering citizens of this republic need decisive, reformist leadership from the nation's capital in order to drag the benighted USA into the 21st century, at the same time that the nation will fare better in the international arena by following the lead of multilateral organizations (as in dealing with Libya) and learning from governments with more advanced ideas.
These radically contrasting attitudes toward America and its position in the world shape the polarization at the center of today's politics. The fundamental questions that divide left and right nearly everywhere concern assessments of the United States. It's those questions that determine the point on the spectrum where individuals locate themselves:
•Is America a gift or a threat to the rest of humanity?
•Do American values count as nobler — or more dysfunctional — than, say, European values?
•Should the United States continue to lead the world or would the planet benefit from swaggering Americans learning from more civilized societies of Europe and elsewhere?
Given the sharp disagreements about the very nature of our distinctive national identity, it's not surprising that conservatives want less Washington interference at home and more Washington determination abroad, while liberals hope for less influence by the American government overseas along with a more muscular federal role in reshaping dysfunctional realities of the homeland.
In this context, Barack Obama is perfectly consistent in demonstrating aggressive leadership in stateside politics but a timorous, reluctant role in foreign affairs. His conservative critics also apply their own philosophy with unassailable coherence by demanding more American power abroad but less meddling with citizens here at home.
SOURCE
************************
ELSEWHERE
A good reason to learn English: "When an elderly patient asked Isabela to hand her three tablets, the home health attendant froze. The patient had read the label, which had been translated from English to Spanish, and it instructed her to take three tablets every time she took the medicine. Isabela, who did not want her last name used, knew from experience -- and a phone call to the doctor confirmed her hunch -- that the correct instruction should have been to take one tablet three times a day. The medication label, it turns out, had been wrongly translated."
Ryan budget: A huge opportunity to improve healthcare: "On Tuesday, House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan, R-Wis., will release a budget blueprint that tackles the three big health care challenges facing the federal budget — ObamaCare, Medicare and Medicaid — with a strategy of repeal, vouchers and block grants. Done properly, those steps would simultaneously improve health care and help balance the budget within a decade."
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)
****************************
Tuesday, April 05, 2011
Leftist psychopathy on display
They have no human fellow feelings at all. They just pretend they do
Are you old enough to remember the polio-era line: "funny as an iron lung"? After all, what kind of person would find funny the notion of someone fighting to breathe?
Answer: Mika Brzezinski.
Today's Morning Joe played a Letterman clip of a faux-promo for an imaginary TV show called "The Dick Cheney Story." As the title song from the Mary Tyler Moore Show plays merrily in the background, we're treated to images of Cheney wielding a gun, in a wheelchair and undergoing open-heart surgery. The clip closes with video of Cheney fighting to get a breath of air.
Cut to Mika, doubled-over, laughing hysterically, literally to the point of tears.
SOURCE
********************
Saving America From Greedy Politicians
"Sadly, we could end up with a generation of Americans who want to work at the Department of Motor Vehicles."
Without explanation, that quote may seem like the ramp-up to a joke. It might be part of a Jay Leno monolog. Or you could follow it up with the famous Jerry Seinfeld ".not that there's anything wrong with that" line.
But that analysis actually appeared in last Friday's edition of the Wall Street Journal. In an editorial entitled "We've Become A Nation Of Takers, Not Makers," Senior Economics Writer Stephen Moore noted that among a large portion of America's college students and recent graduates, government employment is viewed as superior to private sector enterprise because of the "near lifetime security" that government agencies offer their workers.
"When 23-year-olds aren't willing to take career risks" Moore noted, "we have a real problem on our hands."
To help make the case of our "real problem," Moore noted that there are presently more Americans working for their government than there are Americans working in the private sector construction, farming, fishing, forestry, manufacturing, mining and utilities industries combined. And when you compile this bit of information with the reality that government agencies don't produce wealth at all - they merely "collect" portions of the wealth that is produced in the private sector as tax revenue and then spend it to produce government services - then, yes, one can see a bit more clearly why Moore concludes that we have moved decisively from a "nation of makers to a nation of takers."
The "takers" and "makers" analysis is powerful, and hopefully makes sense to lots of Americans. One doesn't have to think too deeply to understand that if an insufficient number of us are "making" things and producing economic value, and too many of us are merely "taking" and consuming the insufficient amount of "things" that are made, well, then, eventually a nation runs out of things to "take."
Yet understanding the vicious cycle that keeps our nation on this very destructive path is quite challenging for some. It requires one to understand some very basic things about economics, yes, but also requires one to care enough to understand a few things about our nation's politics - and "politics" and "economics" are two subjects that many Americans find distasteful.
But consider this: many of the politicians that set policy regarding government employment have a personal self-interest in continuing the trend of creating more government employee "takers" - even if to do so is, in the long run, bad for the country. Mayors, County Supervisors, Governors - and yes even our President - can generally count on grass-roots volunteerism, campaign contributions, and votes from large blocks of government employees, as long as they protect and enhance the ranks of government employment and shelter government workers from the ups and downs that the private sector experiences.
President Barack Obama leads the way with this destructive and self-serving politics. He has made it a central theme of his presidency to speak often of the need for "shared sacifice," noting that we all must be willing to "give a little" in order for our nation to fully recover from the "great recession."
Yet when the government of Wisconsin sought to let their state employees "share" in the sacrifice, President Obama intervened and insisted that government employees were being "maligned." In reality, state taxpayers in Wisconsin pay nearly 100% of the costs of government employee retirement pensions, and well over 90% of government employee's healthcare insurance costs. The uproar in that state was never about Wisconsin indiscriminately firing government workers or cutting the workers' benefits, but about the necessity of government employees taking more financial responsibility for their own retirement and healthcare.
But President Obama will have nothing to do with government employees being made to sacrifice. The more lavish their employment, the more they will vote for Mr. Obama and his party. And so our President, instead, maligned the Government officials of Wisconsin that were trying to save their state from insolvency.
A similar situation is unfolding in California. Governor Jerry Brown presides over the absolute worst statewide fiscal mess in the history of our country. He prides himself in "cutting government spending" his first ninety days in office, yet most of the "cuts" came from the elimination of taxpayer funded mobile telephone and vehicle privileges for government workers (most of us in the private sector don't get "free" mobile phones and cars anyway, but this had apparently become the norm for a good many California state employees).
But Governor Brown absolutely must cut state spending further, and to do so requires that he reduce California employee retirement and healthcare benefits. Yet government employee labor unions bankrolled Brown's campaign last year, and they now "own" him. Thus, Governor Brown has chosen to treat his fiscal mess as a "revenue" issue, rather than a "spending" issue, and is now pursuing a "raise taxes on the rich" solution.
Will America reverse course, and move away from being a nation of mere takers? We must first reject the self-serving politicians who are the greatest benefactors of the "taking."
SOURCE
***********************
Political Statistics
Thomas Sowell
When someone gives you a check and the bank informs you that there are insufficient funds, who do you get mad at? In your own life, you get mad at the guy who gave you a check that bounced, not at the bank. But, in politics, you get mad at whoever tells you that there is no money.
One of the secrets of the growth of the welfare state is that politicians get a lot of mileage out of making promises, without setting aside enough money to fulfill those promises.
When Congress votes for all sorts of benefits, without voting for enough taxes to pay for them, they get the support of those who have been promised the benefits, without getting grief from the taxpayers. It's strictly win-win as far as the welfare-state politicians are concerned. But it is strictly lose-lose, big-time, for the country, as deficits skyrocket.
Anyone who says that we don't have the money to pay what was promised is accused of trying to destroy Social Security, Medicare or Obamacare-- or whatever other unfunded promises have been made. It is like blaming the bank for saying that the check bounced.
It is the same story at the state level as in Washington. The lavish pensions promised to members of public sector unions cannot continue to be paid because the money is just not there. But who are the unions mad at? Those who say that the money is not there.
How far short are the states? It varies from one state to another. It also varies with how large a rate of return the state gets on its investments with the inadequate amount of money that has been set aside to cover its promised pensions.
A front page story on the March 28th issue of Investor's Business Daily showed plainly, with bar graphs, how big Florida's shortfall is under various rates of return on that state's investments. Florida's own estimate of its pension fund's shortfall is based on assuming that they will receive a rate of return of 7.75 percent. But what if it turns out that they don't get that high a return?
A 6 percent rate of return would more than triple the size of Florida's unfunded liability for its employees' pension. The actual rate of return that Florida has received over the past decade has been only 2.6 percent. In other words, by simply assuming a far higher future rate of return on their investments than they have received in the past, Florida politicians can deceive the public as to how deep a hole the state's finances are in.
Political games like this are not confined to Florida. State budgets and federal budgets are not records of facts. They are projections based on assumptions. Just by manipulating a few assumptions, politicians can create a scenario that bears no resemblance to reality.
The "savings" to be made by instituting Obamacare is a product of this kind of manipulation of assumptions. Even when the people who turn out the budget projections do an honest job, they are working with the assumptions given to them by the politicians.
The fact that the end results carry the imprimatur of the Congressional Budget Office-- or of some comparable state agency or reputable private accounting firm-- means absolutely nothing.
When Florida arbitrarily assumes that it is going to get a future rate of return on its pension fund investment that is roughly three times what its past returns have been, that is the same nonsense as when the feds assume that Congress will cut half a billion dollars out of Medicare to finance ObamaCare.
We would probably be better off if there were no Congressional Budget Office to lend its credibility to data based on hopelessly unrealistic assumptions fed to them by politicians.
One of the reasons why a federal "balanced budget" amendment is unlikely to do what many of its advocates claim is that a budget is just a plan for the future. It does not have to bear any resemblance to the realities of either the past or the future.
We do not need reassurances that do not reassure, whether these reassurances are in numbers or in words. No small part of the reason for the economic collapse we have been through is that federally designated rating agencies reassured investors that many mortgage-backed securities were safe, when they were not.
Not only investors, but the whole economy, would have been better off without these reassurances. "Caveat emptor" would be better advice for both investors and voters.
SOURCE
***********************
Democrats Not Governing, But Lying in Wait
David Limbaugh
Do you believe Rep. Paul Ryan when he says we only have a few years left to get our fiscal house in order, or we're going to face European-type austerity? How about the co-chairmen of the bipartisan deficit commission, Alan Simpson and Erskine Bowles, who have essentially issued the same warning?
Have you taken a hard look at President Obama's 10-year budget with a view to whether it would marginally address the crisis? Are you aware of the gargantuan deficits it projects -- averaging some $1 trillion per year -- and that this is before considering the Congressional Budget Office's scoring that revealed that its projected cumulative deficits were understated by a staggering $2.3 trillion?
Did you know that entitlements -- mainly Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid -- are the primary drivers of these deficits but that Obama has yet to come to the table with a genuine entitlement reform proposal? Or that congressional Democrats, for the first time since 1974, did not pass a budget and all of the current wrangling over continuing resolutions and government shutdowns is a direct result of their dereliction?
Can you explain why President Obama, touted as the finest orator in the modern era, didn't exercise leadership over his Democratic lieutenants in Congress to quit playing fiscal Russian roulette? Or why those Democrats proposed just $6 billion in further budget cuts for the remainder of this fiscal year -- and then, only under GOP pressure -- when the budget is $3.8 trillion? Or why they are characterizing the GOP's proposal of $61 billion in cuts (1.6 percent of the budget) as "Draconian"?
You surely know that President Obama has ceaselessly dodged his fiscal responsibilities by blaming his budgets on the $1.3 trillion deficit he "inherited." But how about that he was instrumental in ensuring the passage of the Troubled Asset Relief Program, which contributed heavily to that then-extraordinary deficit number, and that even so, the actual number is substantially lower when you factor in the TARP repayments?
Regardless, don't you think it's fair that we hold him accountable for what he's done since he assumed office? Or should we just let him run against President Bush's record again in 2012, blithely pretending he's been an impotent bystander for four years?
Consider Obama's audacity in scapegoating Bush for deficits that he was instrumental in creating and then proposing, as a solution, an $800 billion pork-laden stimulus bill and trillion-dollar deficits as far as the eye can see.
You'll remember his boastful promises that if we would just indulge his "stimulus" idea, he would jump-start the economy and ensure that unemployment would not exceed 8 percent. Despite getting his way, he has managed to achieve the worst of both worlds: He'll double the national debt in five years and triple it in 10, yet unemployment is just now -- after two years of hovering between 9 and 10 percent -- dipping below 9 percent.
So Obama came into office during very difficult economic times and, instead of implementing policies to truly stimulate economic growth, further smothered the private sector by ratcheting up government spending and onerous regulations, and he has deliberately compounded our national deficits and debt at a time when we are on the brink of a financial catastrophe. Though his own bipartisan deficit commission told him entitlement reform is imperative, he continues to kick the ball farther down the road without so much as an overture toward a nod of a pretense of a good faith effort to tackle it.
This very week, he and his Democratic colleagues are lying in wait for congressional Republicans to refuse to approve the Democrats' reckless budget for the remainder of the year so they can blame the mean GOP for another government shutdown. They'll pretend they have no role in such a shutdown and hope this fraudulent narrative turns the political tide in their favor -- all while the fiscal crisis remains unattended. They'll doubtlessly employ a similar strategy to ambush Republicans as heartless scrooges when Rep. Ryan unveils his long-term budget and proposes real economic growth and authentic entitlement reform.
When you take politics out of the equation, there is a consensus that we are on a collision course with national financial disaster. When you put politics back into the equation, only one party is trying to do something about it.
But here's the rub. Some Republican congressmen are horrified that if they stick to their guns in the upcoming budget battles, they'll lose the PR war, just as Republicans supposedly did in 1995-96. For reasons I'll address next time, 2011 is not 1995 (we have a nation-threatening emergency, folks), and Republicans must remain strong. Honor your mandate, ladies and gentlemen. We've got your back.
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)
****************************
They have no human fellow feelings at all. They just pretend they do
Are you old enough to remember the polio-era line: "funny as an iron lung"? After all, what kind of person would find funny the notion of someone fighting to breathe?
Answer: Mika Brzezinski.
Today's Morning Joe played a Letterman clip of a faux-promo for an imaginary TV show called "The Dick Cheney Story." As the title song from the Mary Tyler Moore Show plays merrily in the background, we're treated to images of Cheney wielding a gun, in a wheelchair and undergoing open-heart surgery. The clip closes with video of Cheney fighting to get a breath of air.
Cut to Mika, doubled-over, laughing hysterically, literally to the point of tears.
SOURCE
********************
Saving America From Greedy Politicians
"Sadly, we could end up with a generation of Americans who want to work at the Department of Motor Vehicles."
Without explanation, that quote may seem like the ramp-up to a joke. It might be part of a Jay Leno monolog. Or you could follow it up with the famous Jerry Seinfeld ".not that there's anything wrong with that" line.
But that analysis actually appeared in last Friday's edition of the Wall Street Journal. In an editorial entitled "We've Become A Nation Of Takers, Not Makers," Senior Economics Writer Stephen Moore noted that among a large portion of America's college students and recent graduates, government employment is viewed as superior to private sector enterprise because of the "near lifetime security" that government agencies offer their workers.
"When 23-year-olds aren't willing to take career risks" Moore noted, "we have a real problem on our hands."
To help make the case of our "real problem," Moore noted that there are presently more Americans working for their government than there are Americans working in the private sector construction, farming, fishing, forestry, manufacturing, mining and utilities industries combined. And when you compile this bit of information with the reality that government agencies don't produce wealth at all - they merely "collect" portions of the wealth that is produced in the private sector as tax revenue and then spend it to produce government services - then, yes, one can see a bit more clearly why Moore concludes that we have moved decisively from a "nation of makers to a nation of takers."
The "takers" and "makers" analysis is powerful, and hopefully makes sense to lots of Americans. One doesn't have to think too deeply to understand that if an insufficient number of us are "making" things and producing economic value, and too many of us are merely "taking" and consuming the insufficient amount of "things" that are made, well, then, eventually a nation runs out of things to "take."
Yet understanding the vicious cycle that keeps our nation on this very destructive path is quite challenging for some. It requires one to understand some very basic things about economics, yes, but also requires one to care enough to understand a few things about our nation's politics - and "politics" and "economics" are two subjects that many Americans find distasteful.
But consider this: many of the politicians that set policy regarding government employment have a personal self-interest in continuing the trend of creating more government employee "takers" - even if to do so is, in the long run, bad for the country. Mayors, County Supervisors, Governors - and yes even our President - can generally count on grass-roots volunteerism, campaign contributions, and votes from large blocks of government employees, as long as they protect and enhance the ranks of government employment and shelter government workers from the ups and downs that the private sector experiences.
President Barack Obama leads the way with this destructive and self-serving politics. He has made it a central theme of his presidency to speak often of the need for "shared sacifice," noting that we all must be willing to "give a little" in order for our nation to fully recover from the "great recession."
Yet when the government of Wisconsin sought to let their state employees "share" in the sacrifice, President Obama intervened and insisted that government employees were being "maligned." In reality, state taxpayers in Wisconsin pay nearly 100% of the costs of government employee retirement pensions, and well over 90% of government employee's healthcare insurance costs. The uproar in that state was never about Wisconsin indiscriminately firing government workers or cutting the workers' benefits, but about the necessity of government employees taking more financial responsibility for their own retirement and healthcare.
But President Obama will have nothing to do with government employees being made to sacrifice. The more lavish their employment, the more they will vote for Mr. Obama and his party. And so our President, instead, maligned the Government officials of Wisconsin that were trying to save their state from insolvency.
A similar situation is unfolding in California. Governor Jerry Brown presides over the absolute worst statewide fiscal mess in the history of our country. He prides himself in "cutting government spending" his first ninety days in office, yet most of the "cuts" came from the elimination of taxpayer funded mobile telephone and vehicle privileges for government workers (most of us in the private sector don't get "free" mobile phones and cars anyway, but this had apparently become the norm for a good many California state employees).
But Governor Brown absolutely must cut state spending further, and to do so requires that he reduce California employee retirement and healthcare benefits. Yet government employee labor unions bankrolled Brown's campaign last year, and they now "own" him. Thus, Governor Brown has chosen to treat his fiscal mess as a "revenue" issue, rather than a "spending" issue, and is now pursuing a "raise taxes on the rich" solution.
Will America reverse course, and move away from being a nation of mere takers? We must first reject the self-serving politicians who are the greatest benefactors of the "taking."
SOURCE
***********************
Political Statistics
Thomas Sowell
When someone gives you a check and the bank informs you that there are insufficient funds, who do you get mad at? In your own life, you get mad at the guy who gave you a check that bounced, not at the bank. But, in politics, you get mad at whoever tells you that there is no money.
One of the secrets of the growth of the welfare state is that politicians get a lot of mileage out of making promises, without setting aside enough money to fulfill those promises.
When Congress votes for all sorts of benefits, without voting for enough taxes to pay for them, they get the support of those who have been promised the benefits, without getting grief from the taxpayers. It's strictly win-win as far as the welfare-state politicians are concerned. But it is strictly lose-lose, big-time, for the country, as deficits skyrocket.
Anyone who says that we don't have the money to pay what was promised is accused of trying to destroy Social Security, Medicare or Obamacare-- or whatever other unfunded promises have been made. It is like blaming the bank for saying that the check bounced.
It is the same story at the state level as in Washington. The lavish pensions promised to members of public sector unions cannot continue to be paid because the money is just not there. But who are the unions mad at? Those who say that the money is not there.
How far short are the states? It varies from one state to another. It also varies with how large a rate of return the state gets on its investments with the inadequate amount of money that has been set aside to cover its promised pensions.
A front page story on the March 28th issue of Investor's Business Daily showed plainly, with bar graphs, how big Florida's shortfall is under various rates of return on that state's investments. Florida's own estimate of its pension fund's shortfall is based on assuming that they will receive a rate of return of 7.75 percent. But what if it turns out that they don't get that high a return?
A 6 percent rate of return would more than triple the size of Florida's unfunded liability for its employees' pension. The actual rate of return that Florida has received over the past decade has been only 2.6 percent. In other words, by simply assuming a far higher future rate of return on their investments than they have received in the past, Florida politicians can deceive the public as to how deep a hole the state's finances are in.
Political games like this are not confined to Florida. State budgets and federal budgets are not records of facts. They are projections based on assumptions. Just by manipulating a few assumptions, politicians can create a scenario that bears no resemblance to reality.
The "savings" to be made by instituting Obamacare is a product of this kind of manipulation of assumptions. Even when the people who turn out the budget projections do an honest job, they are working with the assumptions given to them by the politicians.
The fact that the end results carry the imprimatur of the Congressional Budget Office-- or of some comparable state agency or reputable private accounting firm-- means absolutely nothing.
When Florida arbitrarily assumes that it is going to get a future rate of return on its pension fund investment that is roughly three times what its past returns have been, that is the same nonsense as when the feds assume that Congress will cut half a billion dollars out of Medicare to finance ObamaCare.
We would probably be better off if there were no Congressional Budget Office to lend its credibility to data based on hopelessly unrealistic assumptions fed to them by politicians.
One of the reasons why a federal "balanced budget" amendment is unlikely to do what many of its advocates claim is that a budget is just a plan for the future. It does not have to bear any resemblance to the realities of either the past or the future.
We do not need reassurances that do not reassure, whether these reassurances are in numbers or in words. No small part of the reason for the economic collapse we have been through is that federally designated rating agencies reassured investors that many mortgage-backed securities were safe, when they were not.
Not only investors, but the whole economy, would have been better off without these reassurances. "Caveat emptor" would be better advice for both investors and voters.
SOURCE
***********************
Democrats Not Governing, But Lying in Wait
David Limbaugh
Do you believe Rep. Paul Ryan when he says we only have a few years left to get our fiscal house in order, or we're going to face European-type austerity? How about the co-chairmen of the bipartisan deficit commission, Alan Simpson and Erskine Bowles, who have essentially issued the same warning?
Have you taken a hard look at President Obama's 10-year budget with a view to whether it would marginally address the crisis? Are you aware of the gargantuan deficits it projects -- averaging some $1 trillion per year -- and that this is before considering the Congressional Budget Office's scoring that revealed that its projected cumulative deficits were understated by a staggering $2.3 trillion?
Did you know that entitlements -- mainly Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid -- are the primary drivers of these deficits but that Obama has yet to come to the table with a genuine entitlement reform proposal? Or that congressional Democrats, for the first time since 1974, did not pass a budget and all of the current wrangling over continuing resolutions and government shutdowns is a direct result of their dereliction?
Can you explain why President Obama, touted as the finest orator in the modern era, didn't exercise leadership over his Democratic lieutenants in Congress to quit playing fiscal Russian roulette? Or why those Democrats proposed just $6 billion in further budget cuts for the remainder of this fiscal year -- and then, only under GOP pressure -- when the budget is $3.8 trillion? Or why they are characterizing the GOP's proposal of $61 billion in cuts (1.6 percent of the budget) as "Draconian"?
You surely know that President Obama has ceaselessly dodged his fiscal responsibilities by blaming his budgets on the $1.3 trillion deficit he "inherited." But how about that he was instrumental in ensuring the passage of the Troubled Asset Relief Program, which contributed heavily to that then-extraordinary deficit number, and that even so, the actual number is substantially lower when you factor in the TARP repayments?
Regardless, don't you think it's fair that we hold him accountable for what he's done since he assumed office? Or should we just let him run against President Bush's record again in 2012, blithely pretending he's been an impotent bystander for four years?
Consider Obama's audacity in scapegoating Bush for deficits that he was instrumental in creating and then proposing, as a solution, an $800 billion pork-laden stimulus bill and trillion-dollar deficits as far as the eye can see.
You'll remember his boastful promises that if we would just indulge his "stimulus" idea, he would jump-start the economy and ensure that unemployment would not exceed 8 percent. Despite getting his way, he has managed to achieve the worst of both worlds: He'll double the national debt in five years and triple it in 10, yet unemployment is just now -- after two years of hovering between 9 and 10 percent -- dipping below 9 percent.
So Obama came into office during very difficult economic times and, instead of implementing policies to truly stimulate economic growth, further smothered the private sector by ratcheting up government spending and onerous regulations, and he has deliberately compounded our national deficits and debt at a time when we are on the brink of a financial catastrophe. Though his own bipartisan deficit commission told him entitlement reform is imperative, he continues to kick the ball farther down the road without so much as an overture toward a nod of a pretense of a good faith effort to tackle it.
This very week, he and his Democratic colleagues are lying in wait for congressional Republicans to refuse to approve the Democrats' reckless budget for the remainder of the year so they can blame the mean GOP for another government shutdown. They'll pretend they have no role in such a shutdown and hope this fraudulent narrative turns the political tide in their favor -- all while the fiscal crisis remains unattended. They'll doubtlessly employ a similar strategy to ambush Republicans as heartless scrooges when Rep. Ryan unveils his long-term budget and proposes real economic growth and authentic entitlement reform.
When you take politics out of the equation, there is a consensus that we are on a collision course with national financial disaster. When you put politics back into the equation, only one party is trying to do something about it.
But here's the rub. Some Republican congressmen are horrified that if they stick to their guns in the upcoming budget battles, they'll lose the PR war, just as Republicans supposedly did in 1995-96. For reasons I'll address next time, 2011 is not 1995 (we have a nation-threatening emergency, folks), and Republicans must remain strong. Honor your mandate, ladies and gentlemen. We've got your back.
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)
****************************
A defense of "Anti-intellectualism"
The following is via Instapundit and I agree with it. I would however like to place a broader perspective on it.
"Intellectuals" have overwhelmingly been Leftists. Smart people of a conservative bent have generally gone into business and used their brains to make a lot of money (I did so myself) whereas Leftists just sit around and whine. And that counts as intellectualism. And sadly, people have sometimes listened to them uncritically and sometimes given them power. And THAT is the disaster: Letting people who couldn't run a chicken coop run a country. Barack Obama is a prime example.
But there are of course SOME smart conservative people who go into academe (I did that too) and they really do tend to follow the ideals that Leftist intellectuals give lip-service to. I see it in global warming commentary. Warmist "scientists" and supporters are full of abuse and opportunistic reasoning, while the skeptics are aways posting facts, figures and lots of graphs.
So it is Leftists who have destroyed respect for intellectual endeavour and they are still hard at it with their global warming hoax -- JR
Part of the problem is that the American distrust of intellectualism is itself not the irrational thing that those sympathetic to intellectuals would like to think. Intellectuals killed by the millions in the 20th century, and it actually takes the sophisticated training of "education" to work yourself up into a state where you refuse to count that in the books.
Intellectuals routinely declared things that aren't true; catastrophically wrong predictions about the economy, catastrophically wrong pronouncements about foreign policy, and just generally numerous times where they've been wrong. Again, it takes a lot of training to ignore this fact.
"Scientists" collectively were witnessed by the public flipflopping at a relatively high frequency on numerous topics; how many times did eggs go back and forth between being deadly and beneficial? Sure the media gets some blame here but the scientists played into it, each time confidently pronouncing that this time they had it for sure and it is imperative that everyone live the way they are saying (until tomorrow).
Scientists have failed to resist politicization across the board, and the standards of what constitutes science continues to shift from a living, vibrant, thoughtful understanding of the purposes and ways of science to a scelerotic hide-bound form-over-substance version of science where papers are too often written to either explicitly attract grants or to confirm someone's political beliefs. and regardless of whether this is 2% or 80% of the papers written today it's nearly 100% of the papers that people hear about.
I simplify for rhetorical effect; my point is not that this is a literal description of the current state of the world but that it is far more true than it should be. Any accounting of "anti-intellectualism" that fails to take this into account and lays all the blame on "Americans" is too incomplete to formulate an action plan that will have any chance of success. It's not a one-sided problem.
If you want to fix anti-intellectualism, you first need to fix intellectualism and return it to its roots of dispassionate exploration, commitment to truth over all else and bending processes to find truth rather than bending truth to fit (politicized) processes.
SOURCE
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Beware of feds bearing R&D gifts
President Barack Obama, soon after releasing his federal budget proposal for fiscal year 2012, flew to California to dine with some of the biggest names from America's high-tech business sector, including Steve Jobs of Apple, Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg, Google's Eric Schmidt and Yahoo's Carol Bartz.
The president visited Silicon Valley to promote his "competitiveness agenda," backed by billions of dollars in new federal spending, which, according to the White House, is meant to finance investments "in research and development and to expand incentives for companies to grow and hire."
Obama apparently did not see the irony in extolling the virtues of more federal money for science and technology before a group of people who, by and large, had founded and grown their businesses into stunning success stories without government handouts.
If Congress approves billions of dollars in new federal spending for corporate R&D, don't be surprised if Silicon Valley's executives lobby for a share of the loot. But they should be careful about what they ask for.
While public "investments" in technological innovation sound like a good idea, the danger is that the funds will be directed toward politically popular projects rather than those with the highest economic value. Remember Jimmy Carter's quest for a new synthetic fuel or Bill Clinton's dream of getting Detroit to produce a car that would go 100 miles on a gallon of gas? Untold federal treasure was wasted chasing those wills of the wisp.
The notion that technological innovation requires government subsidies is not modern. During and after the Civil War, for example, the U.S. government provided the Union Pacific and Central Pacific railroads incentives to build the first transcontinental railway link. The two companies received grants of 20 square miles of land for each mile of track they laid and taxpayer-financed loans of up to $48,000 per track mile, depending on the terrain.
Those who think that that engineering feat could not have borne fruit without federal subvention must never have heard of the Great Northern Railway. That line (now part of the Burlington Northern system) connected St. Paul, Minn., to Seattle -- a distance of 1,700 miles over the Northern Rockies. It was completed in January 1893. Built entirely with private funds, the Great Northern was the work of James J. Hill, not Uncle Sam. There were no federal land grants; no loans.
Hill and his colleagues began by purchasing the assets of the bankrupt St. Paul and Pacific Railroad, whose owners, despite government subsidies, had laid only 10 miles of unconnected track. The new team completed the original line, put it on a sound financial footing, and then extended it into North Dakota, ensuring adequate traffic by promoting the development of agriculture along the route. They even gave livestock and feed away to help get farmers and ranchers get started.
The Great Northern also built branch lines that served farms off the main track. Congress, in contrast, prohibited the subsidized railroads from doing so, fearing that the additional cost would jeopardize repayment of their federal loans.
There are two lessons here. The first should be obvious: bureaucrats have no incentive to invest in the most commercially promising ventures. Indeed, federal subsidies prompt businesses to take risks they would not take otherwise. The Union Pacific and Central Pacific went bankrupt eventually.
The second is that if Washington funds Silicon Valley's R&D efforts, politicians and bureaucrats, not the techies, will be calling the shots. Had government been looking over Steve Jobs' shoulders, I don't think the iPhone or iPad would be on the market today.
SOURCE
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Some Hayekian thoughts on recent Congressional follies
Friedrich Hayek, the Nobel-prize-winning Austrian economist (and now YouTube sensation), upheld economic competition and opposed government policies that reduced it. In his surprise bestseller, The Road to Serfdom, he argued that central planning would undermine competition, hamper the economy, and lead to pressures for more and more measures that would enhance the power of the government at the expense of individual liberty. Competition, he wrote, "is the only method by which our activities can be adjusted to each other without coercive or arbitrary intervention of authority."
What would Hayek, who died in 1992, have said about last year's legislative overhaul of the healthcare and financial sectors? In a nicely done recent paper, Peter J. Wallison, a scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, makes a good case that the great economist would have opposed both measures as anti-competitive.
The regulatory overhaul of the financial sector-the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act-would enable the government to directly control financial companies it deems "systematically important" because their failure could destabilize the US financial system. Wallison describes several ways in which this provision of the Dodd-Frank Act would undermine competition in the financial sector, but I found this passage of his especially helpful:
By contrast, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act ("colloquially known as ObamaCare, even though the president never submitted his own plan") would impair competition in a different way-namely, by hampering an effective price system, Wallison argues.
Wallison mentions several provisions of ObamaCare that would undermine competitive prices. One, for example, would require health insurers to "spend at least 85 percent of premiums on `activities that improve health care quality' (the Medical Loss Ratio, or MLR) for large-group insurance," he writes. Here I found Wallison's analysis particularly illuminating, if a bit dry:
Both ObamaCare and the Dodd-Frank Act were touted as measures that would give consumers greater "protection" and "affordability." But if Wallison's analysis is correct, each of these legislative landmarks will undermine economic competition and thereby act against the interests of consumers
SOURCE
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ELSEWHERE
US Justice Department appeals ruling striking down ObamaCare: "The Justice Department has appealed a judge's ruling that struck down the federal overhaul of the health care system, the Obama administration's signature legislation. In its appeal, the Justice Department said the federal health care overhaul's core requirement to make virtually all citizens buy health insurance or face tax penalties is constitutional because Congress has the authority to regulate interstate business."
Chechen leader: Iron rule, Moscow's blessing: "The capital of Chechnya, left in rubble at the end of two savage wars with Moscow, has been remarkably rebuilt with new apartment buildings, a gold-leafed museum, an enormous mosque -- and heavily armed men posted throughout the city who hint at the unspoken bargain that holds the peace. The armed men answer not to Moscow but to Ramzan Kadyrov, the former warlord whom Vladimir Putin appointed president of the Chechen Republic in Russia's North Caucasus Mountains four years ago, letting him do as he wished in return for subduing his rebellious people."
Budget crunched, states push for more lenient sentencing: "As costs to house state inmates have soared, many conservatives are reconsidering a tough-on-crime era that has led to stiffer sentences, overcrowded prisons, and bloated correctional budgets. Budget deficits and steep drops in tax revenues in most states are forcing the issue, with law-and-order Republican governors and state legislators beginning to overhaul years of policies that were designed to lock up more criminals and put them away for longer periods of time." [Could well release everyone doing time for non-violent, non-theft crimes]
We've become a nation of takers, not makers: "More Americans work for the government than in manufacturing, farming, fishing, forestry, mining and utilities combined .... Today in America there are nearly twice as many people working for the government (22.5 million) than in all of manufacturing (11.5 million). This is an almost exact reversal of the situation in 1960, when there were 15 million workers in manufacturing and 8.7 million collecting a paycheck from the government." (
Unionization through regulation: "Changing election rules to favor one side is something we usually associate with dictatorships. Yet a U.S. federal agency did just that recently, as part of the Obama administration's efforts to impose policy changes favorable to organized labor without the consent of Congress. And, as in a dictatorship, the result is very difficult to undo."
To save lives, lift the long ban on paying money for bone marrow donors: "For those in need of a bone marrow transplant, finding a suitable donor is considerably more difficult and time-consuming than finding a blood or plasma donor. The New York Blood Center reports that it receives 10 to 15 new requests for donor matches every day. One reason for this tragic shortage is a quirk in an almost 30-year-old law, the National Organ Transplant Act, that prohibits paying people to donate a life-saving bodily substance like bone marrow."
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)
****************************
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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The following is via Instapundit and I agree with it. I would however like to place a broader perspective on it.
"Intellectuals" have overwhelmingly been Leftists. Smart people of a conservative bent have generally gone into business and used their brains to make a lot of money (I did so myself) whereas Leftists just sit around and whine. And that counts as intellectualism. And sadly, people have sometimes listened to them uncritically and sometimes given them power. And THAT is the disaster: Letting people who couldn't run a chicken coop run a country. Barack Obama is a prime example.
But there are of course SOME smart conservative people who go into academe (I did that too) and they really do tend to follow the ideals that Leftist intellectuals give lip-service to. I see it in global warming commentary. Warmist "scientists" and supporters are full of abuse and opportunistic reasoning, while the skeptics are aways posting facts, figures and lots of graphs.
So it is Leftists who have destroyed respect for intellectual endeavour and they are still hard at it with their global warming hoax -- JR
Part of the problem is that the American distrust of intellectualism is itself not the irrational thing that those sympathetic to intellectuals would like to think. Intellectuals killed by the millions in the 20th century, and it actually takes the sophisticated training of "education" to work yourself up into a state where you refuse to count that in the books.
Intellectuals routinely declared things that aren't true; catastrophically wrong predictions about the economy, catastrophically wrong pronouncements about foreign policy, and just generally numerous times where they've been wrong. Again, it takes a lot of training to ignore this fact.
"Scientists" collectively were witnessed by the public flipflopping at a relatively high frequency on numerous topics; how many times did eggs go back and forth between being deadly and beneficial? Sure the media gets some blame here but the scientists played into it, each time confidently pronouncing that this time they had it for sure and it is imperative that everyone live the way they are saying (until tomorrow).
Scientists have failed to resist politicization across the board, and the standards of what constitutes science continues to shift from a living, vibrant, thoughtful understanding of the purposes and ways of science to a scelerotic hide-bound form-over-substance version of science where papers are too often written to either explicitly attract grants or to confirm someone's political beliefs. and regardless of whether this is 2% or 80% of the papers written today it's nearly 100% of the papers that people hear about.
I simplify for rhetorical effect; my point is not that this is a literal description of the current state of the world but that it is far more true than it should be. Any accounting of "anti-intellectualism" that fails to take this into account and lays all the blame on "Americans" is too incomplete to formulate an action plan that will have any chance of success. It's not a one-sided problem.
If you want to fix anti-intellectualism, you first need to fix intellectualism and return it to its roots of dispassionate exploration, commitment to truth over all else and bending processes to find truth rather than bending truth to fit (politicized) processes.
SOURCE
**********************
Beware of feds bearing R&D gifts
President Barack Obama, soon after releasing his federal budget proposal for fiscal year 2012, flew to California to dine with some of the biggest names from America's high-tech business sector, including Steve Jobs of Apple, Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg, Google's Eric Schmidt and Yahoo's Carol Bartz.
The president visited Silicon Valley to promote his "competitiveness agenda," backed by billions of dollars in new federal spending, which, according to the White House, is meant to finance investments "in research and development and to expand incentives for companies to grow and hire."
Obama apparently did not see the irony in extolling the virtues of more federal money for science and technology before a group of people who, by and large, had founded and grown their businesses into stunning success stories without government handouts.
If Congress approves billions of dollars in new federal spending for corporate R&D, don't be surprised if Silicon Valley's executives lobby for a share of the loot. But they should be careful about what they ask for.
While public "investments" in technological innovation sound like a good idea, the danger is that the funds will be directed toward politically popular projects rather than those with the highest economic value. Remember Jimmy Carter's quest for a new synthetic fuel or Bill Clinton's dream of getting Detroit to produce a car that would go 100 miles on a gallon of gas? Untold federal treasure was wasted chasing those wills of the wisp.
The notion that technological innovation requires government subsidies is not modern. During and after the Civil War, for example, the U.S. government provided the Union Pacific and Central Pacific railroads incentives to build the first transcontinental railway link. The two companies received grants of 20 square miles of land for each mile of track they laid and taxpayer-financed loans of up to $48,000 per track mile, depending on the terrain.
Those who think that that engineering feat could not have borne fruit without federal subvention must never have heard of the Great Northern Railway. That line (now part of the Burlington Northern system) connected St. Paul, Minn., to Seattle -- a distance of 1,700 miles over the Northern Rockies. It was completed in January 1893. Built entirely with private funds, the Great Northern was the work of James J. Hill, not Uncle Sam. There were no federal land grants; no loans.
Hill and his colleagues began by purchasing the assets of the bankrupt St. Paul and Pacific Railroad, whose owners, despite government subsidies, had laid only 10 miles of unconnected track. The new team completed the original line, put it on a sound financial footing, and then extended it into North Dakota, ensuring adequate traffic by promoting the development of agriculture along the route. They even gave livestock and feed away to help get farmers and ranchers get started.
The Great Northern also built branch lines that served farms off the main track. Congress, in contrast, prohibited the subsidized railroads from doing so, fearing that the additional cost would jeopardize repayment of their federal loans.
There are two lessons here. The first should be obvious: bureaucrats have no incentive to invest in the most commercially promising ventures. Indeed, federal subsidies prompt businesses to take risks they would not take otherwise. The Union Pacific and Central Pacific went bankrupt eventually.
The second is that if Washington funds Silicon Valley's R&D efforts, politicians and bureaucrats, not the techies, will be calling the shots. Had government been looking over Steve Jobs' shoulders, I don't think the iPhone or iPad would be on the market today.
SOURCE
**********************
Some Hayekian thoughts on recent Congressional follies
Friedrich Hayek, the Nobel-prize-winning Austrian economist (and now YouTube sensation), upheld economic competition and opposed government policies that reduced it. In his surprise bestseller, The Road to Serfdom, he argued that central planning would undermine competition, hamper the economy, and lead to pressures for more and more measures that would enhance the power of the government at the expense of individual liberty. Competition, he wrote, "is the only method by which our activities can be adjusted to each other without coercive or arbitrary intervention of authority."
What would Hayek, who died in 1992, have said about last year's legislative overhaul of the healthcare and financial sectors? In a nicely done recent paper, Peter J. Wallison, a scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, makes a good case that the great economist would have opposed both measures as anti-competitive.
The regulatory overhaul of the financial sector-the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act-would enable the government to directly control financial companies it deems "systematically important" because their failure could destabilize the US financial system. Wallison describes several ways in which this provision of the Dodd-Frank Act would undermine competition in the financial sector, but I found this passage of his especially helpful:
"In return for the Fed's protection against failure and competition, the largest financial firms in the US economy will be inclined to follow the government's directions on how to conduct their business. For example, if a smaller financial firm is failing, the Fed will be able to induce one of the larger firms to acquire it; if a country is having difficulty selling its bonds, the Fed will be able to get some of the firms it is regulating to invest in those securities. These are not fantasies. In the past, when the Fed was regulating only bank holding companies, it induced them-in the interest of stability in financial markets-to lend to countries that were having difficulty meeting their international payment obligations."
By contrast, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act ("colloquially known as ObamaCare, even though the president never submitted his own plan") would impair competition in a different way-namely, by hampering an effective price system, Wallison argues.
Wallison mentions several provisions of ObamaCare that would undermine competitive prices. One, for example, would require health insurers to "spend at least 85 percent of premiums on `activities that improve health care quality' (the Medical Loss Ratio, or MLR) for large-group insurance," he writes. Here I found Wallison's analysis particularly illuminating, if a bit dry:
"With the MLR, for example, the government's rules on what goes into the numerator and denominator of this ratio will determine the profitability of individual companies and whether they will be able to participate at all in a competitive system. Speaking generally, the numerator of the MLR will be only what the government considers as "activities that improve health care quality."
Immediately we see that price competition is impaired because consumers have no choice on this issue; the services they want may not be available simply because the government has determined that they do not "improve health care quality." In addition, companies will have to price their services to ensure that they meet the minimum MLR in any year or be forced to rebate premiums.
This immediately distorts the pricing system by introducing an element that has nothing to do with what consumers are willing to pay for insurance services. Finally, many companies that offer specialized services that do not fall into this category may have to abandon the services entirely, thus restricting not only competition for those services specifically, but also-if those firms sell out to competitors or otherwise leave the business-the competition that comes from the number of competitors in a market.
Say, for example, that an insurer offers a doctor-referral service, and that service is not included among the items that the government considers an activity "that improves health care quality." The insurer, then, would likely abandon that service because its cost would then have to be paid out of its 15 percent of premium revenue that is available for both administration and profits. Abandoning that service would reduce competition among insurers for the most effective referral services."
Both ObamaCare and the Dodd-Frank Act were touted as measures that would give consumers greater "protection" and "affordability." But if Wallison's analysis is correct, each of these legislative landmarks will undermine economic competition and thereby act against the interests of consumers
SOURCE
**************************
ELSEWHERE
US Justice Department appeals ruling striking down ObamaCare: "The Justice Department has appealed a judge's ruling that struck down the federal overhaul of the health care system, the Obama administration's signature legislation. In its appeal, the Justice Department said the federal health care overhaul's core requirement to make virtually all citizens buy health insurance or face tax penalties is constitutional because Congress has the authority to regulate interstate business."
Chechen leader: Iron rule, Moscow's blessing: "The capital of Chechnya, left in rubble at the end of two savage wars with Moscow, has been remarkably rebuilt with new apartment buildings, a gold-leafed museum, an enormous mosque -- and heavily armed men posted throughout the city who hint at the unspoken bargain that holds the peace. The armed men answer not to Moscow but to Ramzan Kadyrov, the former warlord whom Vladimir Putin appointed president of the Chechen Republic in Russia's North Caucasus Mountains four years ago, letting him do as he wished in return for subduing his rebellious people."
Budget crunched, states push for more lenient sentencing: "As costs to house state inmates have soared, many conservatives are reconsidering a tough-on-crime era that has led to stiffer sentences, overcrowded prisons, and bloated correctional budgets. Budget deficits and steep drops in tax revenues in most states are forcing the issue, with law-and-order Republican governors and state legislators beginning to overhaul years of policies that were designed to lock up more criminals and put them away for longer periods of time." [Could well release everyone doing time for non-violent, non-theft crimes]
We've become a nation of takers, not makers: "More Americans work for the government than in manufacturing, farming, fishing, forestry, mining and utilities combined .... Today in America there are nearly twice as many people working for the government (22.5 million) than in all of manufacturing (11.5 million). This is an almost exact reversal of the situation in 1960, when there were 15 million workers in manufacturing and 8.7 million collecting a paycheck from the government." (
Unionization through regulation: "Changing election rules to favor one side is something we usually associate with dictatorships. Yet a U.S. federal agency did just that recently, as part of the Obama administration's efforts to impose policy changes favorable to organized labor without the consent of Congress. And, as in a dictatorship, the result is very difficult to undo."
To save lives, lift the long ban on paying money for bone marrow donors: "For those in need of a bone marrow transplant, finding a suitable donor is considerably more difficult and time-consuming than finding a blood or plasma donor. The New York Blood Center reports that it receives 10 to 15 new requests for donor matches every day. One reason for this tragic shortage is a quirk in an almost 30-year-old law, the National Organ Transplant Act, that prohibits paying people to donate a life-saving bodily substance like bone marrow."
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)
****************************
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, April 03, 2011
Jews as a race
My recent posts about the Jewish religion questioned its antiquity. My submission was that modern-day Judaism and modern-day Christianity both arose at the same time as ways of adapting the ancient Hebrew religion to the destruction of the the Jerusalem temple by the Romans and the expulsion of most Israelites from Israel -- with Judaism being, if you like, the more conservative solution and Christianity the more radical solution.
Neither religion does things that the ancient Israelites did -- such as killing homosexuals or burning animals on altars -- but both have remained close to the major ethical teachings of the Torah, with Jews remaining true to more minor teachings too. So both religions are only about 2,000 years old rather than the 3,000 years or thereabouts that some Jews claim for their religion.
I may not have convinced anyone of all that but it seems to me that I should complete the picture as I see it by looking at another important Jewish claim: That they are indeed the same people as the ancient Israelites; that they are the modern-day descendants of the exiles from Israel. And I will jump the gun a little by saying that I do see some substance in that claim.
And that claim is a central one for orthodox Jews. They really do believe that Jewish Israelis are the same people in the same land speaking the same language as of old. And some of my Jewish correspondents are so strongly attached to such a view that they see no difficulty in the fact that Jews from Lithuania mostly look like Lithuanians (blue eyes, blond hair) while Jews from Egypt mostly look like Egyptians (black hair, dark eyes). And at the last Pesach seder I attended we were honoured to have a Sabra family present -- who were by far the most dark-skinned people in the otherwise Ashkenazi congregation.
And that is the central difficulty for the orthodox claim: As we see in the famous story of Ruth, Israelites have never been wholly endogamous. The marrying out that is the despair of many a Yiddisher Momma in NYC today has been going on for a long time. So Jews from Lithuania are largely Lithuanians and Jews from Arab lands are largely Arab. Any genetic connection to the Israelites of old would appear to be tenuous indeed.
A second difficulty is that there is a very clear sense in which Judaism is a religion -- and that was the starting point of my posts of a few days ago. You can BECOME a Jew, just as you can BECOME a Christian. The requirements are more severe in some ways for Jews than for Christians but both conversions do happen. You cannot change your race but you can change your religion so is not Judaism simply a religion?
The answer lies, of course, in abandoning two-value logic. Jewry could be BOTH a religion and a race. And it seems that it is. The last I saw of the genetic findings, about half of Ashkenazi Jews do show some distinctively Middle-Eastern genes. So despite the exogamy, some genetic connection to ancient Israel would appear to remain among modern-day Jews. So many or maybe most Ashkenazim who make aliyah are indeed returning to what is at least partly their genetic home. And the fact that their religion is partly that of ancient Israel makes it their home too.
The situation with the Sephardim is harder to disentangle and may require further developments in genetic research to progress. But that the Ashkenazim have hung on to their original ancestry to some degree for so long is obviously encouraging.
So the holiest of holy cities has indeed regathered to itself its people.
-----
Jewish humor is of course legendary and I am a great devotee of it. I was probably started off by being taken to see Marx Bros. movies as a kid. It often has tragic undertones, as one might expect. A totally mad example of that which I can never get out of my mind is the crack by Milton Berle: "Anytime a person goes into a delicatessen and orders a pastrami on white bread, somewhere a Jew dies". So let me end up my comments on endogamy/exogamy with an equally mad cartoon on the subject
And should I mention that I always order my Pastrami on rye?
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Confirmation that Goldstone is really soapstone
You can easily carve soapstone into any shape you like. Jewish judge Richard Goldstone has now done a stunning re-evaluation of his own anti-Israel report. The Arabs must have stiffed him (i.e. not given him his expected reward)
In a stunning and unexpected turn of events, Judge Richard Goldstone has essentially reversed himself on the findings of the Goldstone Report. He does, of course, qualify his remarks to make it appear that he has not reversed himself. What he does, in effect, is to say that if only Israel had cooperated with his investigation from the start, he would not have reached the incorrect conclusions of the now famous and highly influential report. Israel, of course, had quite good reasons to distrust Goldstone, as his report did major damage. But one would rather have Judge Goldstone now blame Israel for his original damaging conclusions than to have him blame Israel for intentionally being the major human rights violator in the Middle East.
Now, Goldstone asserts, “We know a lot more today about what happened in the Gaza war of 2008-09 than we did when I chaired the fact-finding commission.” Poppycock! As Goldstone’s numerous critics pointed out as soon as the report was issued, its many vulnerabilities were known at that very moment. One could look no further than the lengthy and devastating critique by Moshe Halbertal that appeared in The New Republic, or the many commentaries on it by Alan Dershowitz.
As Dershowitz wrote at the time: “It is far more accusatory of Israel, far less balanced in its criticism of Hamas, far less honest in its evaluation of the evidence, far less responsible in drawing its conclusion, far more biased against Israeli than Palestinian witnesses, and far more willing to draw adverse inferences of intentionality from Israeli conduct and statements than from comparable Palestinian conduct and statements.”
Mr. Goldstone may prefer that we forget all this, but savvy readers will have no problem finding many sources that pointed to the report’s many flaws in 2009. Nevertheless, it is refreshing to find today that Goldstone now says: “That the crimes allegedly committed by Hamas were intentional goes without saying – its rockets were purposefully and indiscriminately aimed at civilian targets.” As for serious crimes against civilians that resulted from Israeli defensive action, Goldstone now writes that “civilians were not intentionally targeted as a matter of policy” by Israel.
The moral equivalence, thankfully, has now disappeared in the judge’s new conclusions. Moreover, where possible violations of human rights were committed by Israel, Goldstone now writes that in one case if an Israeli officer was found to have acted inappropriately, and is “found to have been negligent, Israel will respond accordingly.”
He now argues, perhaps out of guilt or perhaps he decided his critics were correct, that “the purpose of the Goldstone Report was never to prove a foregone conclusion against Israel,” and that the original mandate of the UN Human Rights Council “was skewed against Israel.” Score yet another point for his critics.
And, Goldstone adds, Israel “has the right and obligation to defends itself and its citizens against attacks from abroad and within.” He also stresses, although one would be hard pressed to find this in all the press reports about it, that “our report marked the first time illegal acts of terrorism from Hamas were being investigated and condemned by the United Nations.” Rather strange, then, that all the coverage emphasized Israel as the sole villain, and few could find any emphasis in the Report about Hamas and its war crimes.
If they were at all lax, and here again is Goldstone’s attempt to pass the buck, it was because they were not able to “include any evidence provided by the Israeli government,” which did not cooperate with them. Now, he says, Israel has in fact carried out investigations of rights violations in “good faith,” and yes — “Hamas has done nothing.” Surprise, surprise!
As Goldstone admits underhandedly, saying that his critics were correct: "Some have suggested that it was absurd to expect Hamas, an organization that has a policy to destroy the state of Israel, to investigate what we said were serious war crimes. It was my hope, even if unrealistic, that Hamas would do so, especially if Israel conducted its own investigations. At minimum I hoped that in the face of a clear finding that its members were committing serious war crimes, Hamas would curtail its attacks. Sadly, that has not been the case. Hundreds more rockets and mortar rounds have been directed at civilian targets in southern Israel. That comparatively few Israelis have been killed by the unlawful rocket and mortar attacks from Gaza in no way minimizes the criminality. The U.N. Human Rights Council should condemn these heinous acts in the strongest terms."
And later on, he writes that “there has been no effort by Hamas in Gaza to investigate the allegations of its war crimes and possible crimes against humanity.”
Goldstone indeed writes: “In the end, asking Hamas to investigate may have been a mistaken enterprise.” No kidding. It seems it has just occurred to the judge that a terrorist organization committed to destroying Israel cannot, unlike democratic Israel, have any stake in investigating its own human rights violations. Did the judge really not comprehend this in 2009?
And as for right now, Judge Goldstone adds that “the Human Rights Council should condemn the inexcusable and cold-blooded recent slaughter of a young Israeli couple and three of their small children in their beds.” Yes, Yes, Yes! What the judge does not say, of course, is that we all know that this will simply not happen. A Council that until recently had Col. Qadaffi’s Libya as a member is not about to do this, despite Goldstone’s recommendation.
SOURCE
**********************
A type of medical care that delivers real value -- so may be attacked by the levellers
And $1500 a year seems cheap to me -- compared to the cost of normal private insurance
Every year, thousands of people make a deal with their doctor: I'll pay you a fixed annual fee, whether or not I need your services, and in return you'll see me the day I call, remember who I am and what ails me, and give me your undivided attention.
But this arrangement potentially poses a big threat to Medicare and to the new world of medical care envisioned under President Barack Obama's health overhaul.
The spread of "concierge medicine," where doctors limit their practice to patients who pay a fee of about $1,500 a year, could drive a wedge among the insured. Eventually, people unable to afford the retainer might find themselves stuck on a lower tier, facing less time with doctors and longer waits.
Medicare recipients, who account for a big share of patients in doctors' offices, are the most vulnerable. The program's financial troubles are causing doctors to reassess their participation. But the impact could be broader because primary care doctors are in short supply and the health law will bring in more than 30 million newly insured patients.
If concierge medicine goes beyond just a thriving niche, it could lead to a kind of insurance caste system.
"What we are looking at is the prospect of a more explicitly tiered system where people with money have a different kind of insurance relationship than most of the middle class, and where Medicare is no longer as universal as we would like it to be," said John Rother, policy director for AARP.
Concierge doctors say they're not out to exclude anyone, but are trying to recapture the personal connection shredded by modern medicine. Instead of juggling 2,000 or more patients, they can concentrate on a few hundred, stressing prevention and acting as advocates with specialists and hospitals.
"I don't have to be looking at patient mix and how many are booked per hour," said Dr. Lewis Weiner, a primary care physician in Providence, R.I., who's been in a concierge practice since 2005.
"I get to know the individual," Weiner said. "I see their color. I see their moods. I pick up changes in their lives, new stressors that I would not have found as easily before. It's been a very positive shift."
Making the switch can also be economically rewarding. If 500 patients pay $1,500 apiece, that's gross revenue of $750,000 for the practice. Many concierge doctors also bill Medicare and private insurance for services not covered by their retainer.
MDVIP marketing executive Mark Murrison says its doctors do not sell access, but a level of clinical services above what Medicare or private insurance cover. The cornerstone is an intensive annual physical focused on prevention. About half the patients are Medicare beneficiaries.
Retainer fees range from $1,500 to $1,800 a year, and MDVIP collects $500 of that for legal, regulatory and other support services.
Murrison said the fee is affordable for middle-class households when compared with the cost of many consumer goods and services. "One of our goals is to democratize concierge medicine," he said.
For now, there may be fewer than 2,000 doctors in all types of retainer practice nationally. Most are primary care physicians, a sliver of the estimated 300,000 generalists.
The trend caught the eye of MedPAC, a commission created by Congress that advises lawmakers on Medicare and watches for problems with access. It hired consultants to investigate.
Their report, delivered last fall, found listings for 756 concierge doctors nationally, a five-fold increase from the number identified in a 2005 survey by the Government Accountability Office.
The transcript of a meeting last September at which the report was discussed reveals concerns among commission members that Medicare beneficiaries could face sharply reduced access if the trend accelerates.
"My worst fear _ and I don't know how realistic it is _ is that this is a harbinger of our approaching a tipping point," said MedPAC chairman Glenn Hackbarth, noting that "there's too much money" for doctors to pass up.
Hackbarth continued: "The nightmare I have _ and, again, I don't know how realistic it is _ is that a couple of these things come together, and you could have a quite dramatic erosion in access in a very short time."
John Goodman, a conservative health policy expert, predicts the health care law will drive more patients to try concierge medicine. "Seniors who can pay for it will go outside the system," he said.
MedPAC's Hackbarth declined to be interviewed. But Berenson, a physician and policy expert, said "the fact that excellent doctors are doing this suggests we've got a problem." "The lesson is, if we don't attend to what is now a relatively small phenomenon, it's going to blow up," he added.
When a primary care doctor switches to concierge practice, it means several hundred Medicare beneficiaries must find another provider. Medicare declined an interview on potential consequences. "There are no policy changes in the works at this time," said spokeswoman Ellen Griffith.
More here
************************
Excerpt from an email I received from a Democrat operative:
Sounds good to me
Twenty-three is how many Senate seats Democrats have to defend in 2012. That’s a boatload. Ten is how many Republicans have – less than half.
Four. This number really gives me heartburn. The GOP gains four seats, and they’ll have the votes in the Senate to pass anything coming from the House
*********************
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)
****************************
My recent posts about the Jewish religion questioned its antiquity. My submission was that modern-day Judaism and modern-day Christianity both arose at the same time as ways of adapting the ancient Hebrew religion to the destruction of the the Jerusalem temple by the Romans and the expulsion of most Israelites from Israel -- with Judaism being, if you like, the more conservative solution and Christianity the more radical solution.
Neither religion does things that the ancient Israelites did -- such as killing homosexuals or burning animals on altars -- but both have remained close to the major ethical teachings of the Torah, with Jews remaining true to more minor teachings too. So both religions are only about 2,000 years old rather than the 3,000 years or thereabouts that some Jews claim for their religion.
I may not have convinced anyone of all that but it seems to me that I should complete the picture as I see it by looking at another important Jewish claim: That they are indeed the same people as the ancient Israelites; that they are the modern-day descendants of the exiles from Israel. And I will jump the gun a little by saying that I do see some substance in that claim.
And that claim is a central one for orthodox Jews. They really do believe that Jewish Israelis are the same people in the same land speaking the same language as of old. And some of my Jewish correspondents are so strongly attached to such a view that they see no difficulty in the fact that Jews from Lithuania mostly look like Lithuanians (blue eyes, blond hair) while Jews from Egypt mostly look like Egyptians (black hair, dark eyes). And at the last Pesach seder I attended we were honoured to have a Sabra family present -- who were by far the most dark-skinned people in the otherwise Ashkenazi congregation.
And that is the central difficulty for the orthodox claim: As we see in the famous story of Ruth, Israelites have never been wholly endogamous. The marrying out that is the despair of many a Yiddisher Momma in NYC today has been going on for a long time. So Jews from Lithuania are largely Lithuanians and Jews from Arab lands are largely Arab. Any genetic connection to the Israelites of old would appear to be tenuous indeed.
A second difficulty is that there is a very clear sense in which Judaism is a religion -- and that was the starting point of my posts of a few days ago. You can BECOME a Jew, just as you can BECOME a Christian. The requirements are more severe in some ways for Jews than for Christians but both conversions do happen. You cannot change your race but you can change your religion so is not Judaism simply a religion?
The answer lies, of course, in abandoning two-value logic. Jewry could be BOTH a religion and a race. And it seems that it is. The last I saw of the genetic findings, about half of Ashkenazi Jews do show some distinctively Middle-Eastern genes. So despite the exogamy, some genetic connection to ancient Israel would appear to remain among modern-day Jews. So many or maybe most Ashkenazim who make aliyah are indeed returning to what is at least partly their genetic home. And the fact that their religion is partly that of ancient Israel makes it their home too.
The situation with the Sephardim is harder to disentangle and may require further developments in genetic research to progress. But that the Ashkenazim have hung on to their original ancestry to some degree for so long is obviously encouraging.
So the holiest of holy cities has indeed regathered to itself its people.
-----
Jewish humor is of course legendary and I am a great devotee of it. I was probably started off by being taken to see Marx Bros. movies as a kid. It often has tragic undertones, as one might expect. A totally mad example of that which I can never get out of my mind is the crack by Milton Berle: "Anytime a person goes into a delicatessen and orders a pastrami on white bread, somewhere a Jew dies". So let me end up my comments on endogamy/exogamy with an equally mad cartoon on the subject
And should I mention that I always order my Pastrami on rye?
*********************
Confirmation that Goldstone is really soapstone
You can easily carve soapstone into any shape you like. Jewish judge Richard Goldstone has now done a stunning re-evaluation of his own anti-Israel report. The Arabs must have stiffed him (i.e. not given him his expected reward)
In a stunning and unexpected turn of events, Judge Richard Goldstone has essentially reversed himself on the findings of the Goldstone Report. He does, of course, qualify his remarks to make it appear that he has not reversed himself. What he does, in effect, is to say that if only Israel had cooperated with his investigation from the start, he would not have reached the incorrect conclusions of the now famous and highly influential report. Israel, of course, had quite good reasons to distrust Goldstone, as his report did major damage. But one would rather have Judge Goldstone now blame Israel for his original damaging conclusions than to have him blame Israel for intentionally being the major human rights violator in the Middle East.
Now, Goldstone asserts, “We know a lot more today about what happened in the Gaza war of 2008-09 than we did when I chaired the fact-finding commission.” Poppycock! As Goldstone’s numerous critics pointed out as soon as the report was issued, its many vulnerabilities were known at that very moment. One could look no further than the lengthy and devastating critique by Moshe Halbertal that appeared in The New Republic, or the many commentaries on it by Alan Dershowitz.
As Dershowitz wrote at the time: “It is far more accusatory of Israel, far less balanced in its criticism of Hamas, far less honest in its evaluation of the evidence, far less responsible in drawing its conclusion, far more biased against Israeli than Palestinian witnesses, and far more willing to draw adverse inferences of intentionality from Israeli conduct and statements than from comparable Palestinian conduct and statements.”
Mr. Goldstone may prefer that we forget all this, but savvy readers will have no problem finding many sources that pointed to the report’s many flaws in 2009. Nevertheless, it is refreshing to find today that Goldstone now says: “That the crimes allegedly committed by Hamas were intentional goes without saying – its rockets were purposefully and indiscriminately aimed at civilian targets.” As for serious crimes against civilians that resulted from Israeli defensive action, Goldstone now writes that “civilians were not intentionally targeted as a matter of policy” by Israel.
The moral equivalence, thankfully, has now disappeared in the judge’s new conclusions. Moreover, where possible violations of human rights were committed by Israel, Goldstone now writes that in one case if an Israeli officer was found to have acted inappropriately, and is “found to have been negligent, Israel will respond accordingly.”
He now argues, perhaps out of guilt or perhaps he decided his critics were correct, that “the purpose of the Goldstone Report was never to prove a foregone conclusion against Israel,” and that the original mandate of the UN Human Rights Council “was skewed against Israel.” Score yet another point for his critics.
And, Goldstone adds, Israel “has the right and obligation to defends itself and its citizens against attacks from abroad and within.” He also stresses, although one would be hard pressed to find this in all the press reports about it, that “our report marked the first time illegal acts of terrorism from Hamas were being investigated and condemned by the United Nations.” Rather strange, then, that all the coverage emphasized Israel as the sole villain, and few could find any emphasis in the Report about Hamas and its war crimes.
If they were at all lax, and here again is Goldstone’s attempt to pass the buck, it was because they were not able to “include any evidence provided by the Israeli government,” which did not cooperate with them. Now, he says, Israel has in fact carried out investigations of rights violations in “good faith,” and yes — “Hamas has done nothing.” Surprise, surprise!
As Goldstone admits underhandedly, saying that his critics were correct: "Some have suggested that it was absurd to expect Hamas, an organization that has a policy to destroy the state of Israel, to investigate what we said were serious war crimes. It was my hope, even if unrealistic, that Hamas would do so, especially if Israel conducted its own investigations. At minimum I hoped that in the face of a clear finding that its members were committing serious war crimes, Hamas would curtail its attacks. Sadly, that has not been the case. Hundreds more rockets and mortar rounds have been directed at civilian targets in southern Israel. That comparatively few Israelis have been killed by the unlawful rocket and mortar attacks from Gaza in no way minimizes the criminality. The U.N. Human Rights Council should condemn these heinous acts in the strongest terms."
And later on, he writes that “there has been no effort by Hamas in Gaza to investigate the allegations of its war crimes and possible crimes against humanity.”
Goldstone indeed writes: “In the end, asking Hamas to investigate may have been a mistaken enterprise.” No kidding. It seems it has just occurred to the judge that a terrorist organization committed to destroying Israel cannot, unlike democratic Israel, have any stake in investigating its own human rights violations. Did the judge really not comprehend this in 2009?
And as for right now, Judge Goldstone adds that “the Human Rights Council should condemn the inexcusable and cold-blooded recent slaughter of a young Israeli couple and three of their small children in their beds.” Yes, Yes, Yes! What the judge does not say, of course, is that we all know that this will simply not happen. A Council that until recently had Col. Qadaffi’s Libya as a member is not about to do this, despite Goldstone’s recommendation.
SOURCE
**********************
A type of medical care that delivers real value -- so may be attacked by the levellers
And $1500 a year seems cheap to me -- compared to the cost of normal private insurance
Every year, thousands of people make a deal with their doctor: I'll pay you a fixed annual fee, whether or not I need your services, and in return you'll see me the day I call, remember who I am and what ails me, and give me your undivided attention.
But this arrangement potentially poses a big threat to Medicare and to the new world of medical care envisioned under President Barack Obama's health overhaul.
The spread of "concierge medicine," where doctors limit their practice to patients who pay a fee of about $1,500 a year, could drive a wedge among the insured. Eventually, people unable to afford the retainer might find themselves stuck on a lower tier, facing less time with doctors and longer waits.
Medicare recipients, who account for a big share of patients in doctors' offices, are the most vulnerable. The program's financial troubles are causing doctors to reassess their participation. But the impact could be broader because primary care doctors are in short supply and the health law will bring in more than 30 million newly insured patients.
If concierge medicine goes beyond just a thriving niche, it could lead to a kind of insurance caste system.
"What we are looking at is the prospect of a more explicitly tiered system where people with money have a different kind of insurance relationship than most of the middle class, and where Medicare is no longer as universal as we would like it to be," said John Rother, policy director for AARP.
Concierge doctors say they're not out to exclude anyone, but are trying to recapture the personal connection shredded by modern medicine. Instead of juggling 2,000 or more patients, they can concentrate on a few hundred, stressing prevention and acting as advocates with specialists and hospitals.
"I don't have to be looking at patient mix and how many are booked per hour," said Dr. Lewis Weiner, a primary care physician in Providence, R.I., who's been in a concierge practice since 2005.
"I get to know the individual," Weiner said. "I see their color. I see their moods. I pick up changes in their lives, new stressors that I would not have found as easily before. It's been a very positive shift."
Making the switch can also be economically rewarding. If 500 patients pay $1,500 apiece, that's gross revenue of $750,000 for the practice. Many concierge doctors also bill Medicare and private insurance for services not covered by their retainer.
MDVIP marketing executive Mark Murrison says its doctors do not sell access, but a level of clinical services above what Medicare or private insurance cover. The cornerstone is an intensive annual physical focused on prevention. About half the patients are Medicare beneficiaries.
Retainer fees range from $1,500 to $1,800 a year, and MDVIP collects $500 of that for legal, regulatory and other support services.
Murrison said the fee is affordable for middle-class households when compared with the cost of many consumer goods and services. "One of our goals is to democratize concierge medicine," he said.
For now, there may be fewer than 2,000 doctors in all types of retainer practice nationally. Most are primary care physicians, a sliver of the estimated 300,000 generalists.
The trend caught the eye of MedPAC, a commission created by Congress that advises lawmakers on Medicare and watches for problems with access. It hired consultants to investigate.
Their report, delivered last fall, found listings for 756 concierge doctors nationally, a five-fold increase from the number identified in a 2005 survey by the Government Accountability Office.
The transcript of a meeting last September at which the report was discussed reveals concerns among commission members that Medicare beneficiaries could face sharply reduced access if the trend accelerates.
"My worst fear _ and I don't know how realistic it is _ is that this is a harbinger of our approaching a tipping point," said MedPAC chairman Glenn Hackbarth, noting that "there's too much money" for doctors to pass up.
Hackbarth continued: "The nightmare I have _ and, again, I don't know how realistic it is _ is that a couple of these things come together, and you could have a quite dramatic erosion in access in a very short time."
John Goodman, a conservative health policy expert, predicts the health care law will drive more patients to try concierge medicine. "Seniors who can pay for it will go outside the system," he said.
MedPAC's Hackbarth declined to be interviewed. But Berenson, a physician and policy expert, said "the fact that excellent doctors are doing this suggests we've got a problem." "The lesson is, if we don't attend to what is now a relatively small phenomenon, it's going to blow up," he added.
When a primary care doctor switches to concierge practice, it means several hundred Medicare beneficiaries must find another provider. Medicare declined an interview on potential consequences. "There are no policy changes in the works at this time," said spokeswoman Ellen Griffith.
More here
************************
Excerpt from an email I received from a Democrat operative:
Sounds good to me
Twenty-three is how many Senate seats Democrats have to defend in 2012. That’s a boatload. Ten is how many Republicans have – less than half.
Four. This number really gives me heartburn. The GOP gains four seats, and they’ll have the votes in the Senate to pass anything coming from the House
*********************
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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