Conservatives are more disgusted by animal mutilation than are liberals

That is the finding of the article below.  See particularly their Table 4.  Seeing a ripped apart animal didn't disturb American liberals much at all.  Given the mass-murdering ways of socialists when they get untrammelled power (Lenin, Stalin. Mao, Hitler, Castro etc) that should not be much a of a surprise -- to say nothing of the Leftist indifference to abortion.  They have the psychopath's emotional shallowness and indifference to suffering in others. They are basically very nasty people.  Despite Leftist pretensions, it is conservatives who really feel for others.

The findings below are really quite striking.  The brain activity observed across a lot of brain regions in response to an image of a mutilated animal was quite a strong predictor of political orientation.  Conservatives were really stirred up by the image whereas liberals were not.  You can tell pretty reliably where a person is politically by how much suffering disgusts him

Rather vaguely, the authors of the article interpret their results as showing that conservatives have a general negativity bias. But their own results refute that. There was NOTHING general in the responses of conservatives. The authors used a number of different stimuli but it was only the mutilated animal that evoked a strongly differentiated response. It could be argued that the results show conservatives to have a weak stomach but if a strong stomach goes with being relaxed about mass-murder and killing babies,a weak stomach would seem highly desirable. The monstrous description of killing the unborn as "choice" showed Leftist hard-heartedness long before the research below did

Nonpolitical Images Evoke Neural Predictors of Political Ideology

By Woo-Young Ahn et al.

Summary

Political ideologies summarize dimensions of life that define how a person organizes their public and private behavior, including their attitudes associated with sex, family, education, and personal autonomy [ 1, 2 ]. Despite the abstract nature of such sensibilities, fundamental features of political ideology have been found to be deeply connected to basic biological mechanisms [ 3–7 ] that may serve to defend against environmental challenges like contamination and physical threat [ 8–12 ].

These results invite the provocative claim that neural responses to nonpolitical stimuli (like contaminated food or physical threats) should be highly predictive of abstract political opinions (like attitudes toward gun control and abortion) [ 13 ].

We applied a machine-learning method to fMRI data to test the hypotheses that brain responses to emotionally evocative images predict individual scores on a standard political ideology assay.

Disgusting images, especially those related to animal-reminder disgust (e.g., mutilated body), generate neural responses that are highly predictive of political orientation even though these neural predictors do not agree with participants’ conscious rating of the stimuli.

Images from other affective categories do not support such predictions. Remarkably, brain responses to a single disgusting stimulus were sufficient to make accurate predictions about an individual subject’s political ideology.

These results provide strong support for the idea that fundamental neural processing differences that emerge under the challenge of emotionally evocative stimuli may serve to structure political beliefs in ways formerly unappreciated.

SOURCE

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Backgrounder on the Middle east

The author is an American Kurd working for the U.N.

After thinking about your comment on the Kurds, and what the Press won't tell you, I thought you might like the perspective of someone whose spent a bit of time over here, and what I know from my personal experience of being over here, which is a perspective the general American public is clueless about because of our bought and paid for media.

So let me start by defining the players:

Arab Sunni Islam: They believe there was only one prophet, Mohammad, and that anyone that believes otherwise is an infidel.  They hate Israel, and don't acknowledge their existence. They were allies of the Nazi's in WWII.

Arab Shia (Shi'ite) Islam: They believe that there were follow-on prophets after Mohammad.  These "Prophets" are known as "Imam's" and their word is god's law, anyone who doesn't believe as they do is an Infidel.  They hate Israel, and don't acknowledge their existence.  They were allies of the Nazi's in WWII as well.

That's the primary difference between these two groups, but both are radical in their view of Islam, (wahhabism - the ultra conservative or orthodox belief in Islamic law, created by the Saudi royal family - think Amish v.s. Modern Christianity) and feel that anyone that doesn't believe like they do, is ok to kill as defined by their version of the Quran.

They all believe in Sharia law as greater than any government, and both sects believe in a Caliphate, or Islamic State forming again one day like the Ottoman Empire, which was the last one prior to the breakup after WW1.  That's why you see Christians being culled and killed in places like Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Turkey, Jordan, Lybia, Syria, etc. ............ as both sides believe Christianity to be an abomination, and are intolerant of anything but their own religion.  Yes even in the countries we consider 'allies', like Qatar, Kuwait, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, U.A.E, etc. (Pretty much all the oil producing countries, and places with royal families)

80+% of the Arab Muslim population, whether Sunni or Shia, support what is going on with ISIS - as they are supporting ethnic cleansing of Christians and other beliefs which are non-Muslim.

There are no civilian casualties when bombing ISIS, as if they aren't pointing a gun, they are in direct support of the ISIS fighters, so don't believe a word the media says about civilian casualties. The military knows this, but the media doesn't have a clue.

Now for the Kurds.  The Kurds are a dispersed ethnic group, across the entire Middle East, and predominantly live in Kurdistan, Turkey, northern Syria, and northern Iraq, where there has traditionally been peace. Kurds comprise anywhere from 18% to 25% of the population in Turkey, 15-20% in Iraq, 9% in Syria, 7% in Iran and 1.3% in Armenia.  In all of these countries except Iran, Kurds form the second largest ethnic group. Roughly 55% of the world's Kurds live in Turkey, about 18% each in Iran and Iraq, and a bit over 5% in Syria. They are purportedly the descendents of King Solomon, and are Persian in ancestry.  They encompass a variety of religions: they are Islam, Yarsan (Muslim, but non-confrontational), Yazidis (Christian theology), Zoroastianism (Ahura Mazda - Persian religion), Judaism (yes, there are Kurdish Jews), and Christianity.

While I was in Iraq, it was in Irbil where private western financial capital was flowing, (not U.S. government bribes, like in the south) in building three to five star resorts like Marriot, Best Western, Howard Johnson, and was the only area considered "safe" enough in the entire country to walk the streets without body armour outside the wire.  Investment capital was flowing there, not in Bagdad as one might think, as the Kurds have a very European mindset, and are the only place in Iraq, and in the Middle East as a whole, where their public schools allowed girls to be educated.  They are thought as chattels everywhere else, including places like Abu Dubai, Qatar, Kuwait, etc., who are supposed to be our allies.

The Kurds have the Peshmerga, which has always been feared by both Sunnis AND Shia, because the Kurds have been used as canon-fodder for generations when under Arab control, and now that they have autonomy in northern Iraq, they despise most Arabs, which has the Royal families worried.  What scares them even more, is the Female Peshmerga --  which are so feared by ISIS, they are avoiding the Peshmerga wherever they can, which is why you don't see much in the way of conflict against the Kurds in the north.

All we have to do in order to get rid of ISIS, which all rumours indicate is being funded by both the Saudis, and the Yemenis, is to arm the Kurds, and tell them Iraq is theirs for the taking.  They have a 375,000 man/woman standing army in the Peshmerga, and only need the weapons to do the job.  They don't want our help on the ground, but welcome our air support.  It's the smart move to not get re-engaged in another Saudi-Prince-dictated war.

Hope that helps you to understand a bit about this side of the world, and why picking any allies against ISIS, puts us in bed with other terrorists, like Hamas, and Hezbollah, or puts us in cooperation with Iran, unless we do the right thing, and pick helping just the Kurds.  If Israel was very smart, they would come to the aid of the Kurds, join forces, and make us all look like idiots, as the Kurds and the Israelis together could clean out the entire Middle East with ease.

Via email

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Too much time on the present, not enough time on the past crusades

Imperialism was invented in the Middle East and the Jihadis are its modern-day exponents

“Most of us spend too much time on the last twenty four hours and too little on the last six thousand years.” — Will Durant

We are forever hearing the Muslim world using the term “Crusader” in reference to the West when accusing us of every evil that has ever befallen them, as though we had invented colonialism and exploitation or the acquisition of booty in the pursuit of empire.

One of the most prevalent characteristics of the jihadist—when he’s not using the religion of Islam to justify his savagery—is his habitual revision and/or obfuscation of actual Middle Eastern history. Always careful to avoid turning back the pages far enough to reveal how Islam’s religious parvenus actually pioneered the very idea of imperialism and colonial rule, the jihadist must overlook the fact that long before there was a Palestine “occupied” by a State of Israel, there was also a Palestine when Jews lived absent the presence of religiously intolerant Arab Muslims. Today’s “pro-Palestinian” protester vehemently refuses any discussion regarding the awkward historical truth defining who is actually occupying who in the land of Israel.

Efraim Karsh has noted, “Contrary to the conventional wisdom, it is the Middle East where the institution of empire not only originated (for example, Egypt, Assyria, Babylon, Iran, and so on) but where its spirit has also outlived its European counterpart.” We are now accustomed to seeing anti-Zionism placards at any event arranged for the purpose of protesting against the State of Israel, as though any Jew should be ashamed of admitting to being a Zionist. Unlike the Islamic imperialist (read: jihadist), the Zionist doesn’t want to rule the world and hold indigenous captives under his thumb. Rather he simply wants to return to the land of Israel, his ancient homeland, and live there in peace, safely out of reach of the Islamic imperialist.

But the jihadist will travel back in history only so far as Jabotinsky and Herzl, as though Zionism began with them. Never mind the fact that Jabotinsky and Herzl and their Zionism saved many Jews from the gas chambers of Auschwitz and Sobibor, or repatriated into Israel those Jewish survivors who walked out of the darkness of Eastern Europe at the end of WW2, the jihadist, in his madness, erroneously sees only a mirror image of himself and Islam’s imperialistic tendencies in the Zionism of the Jew.

This is why the nefarious Protocols of the Elders of Zion has become the Arab Muslim’s most popular proof for his vitriol against the Jews of Israel. Never mind the ancient history of Zionism, that this same Zionism predates even the Muslim Arab invasion of ancient Israel, the Islamist sees only Jabotinsky and Herzl and the Jewish refugee fighting (and winning) his way back into what had been for so long a preponderant Arab Muslim Palestine.

The Arab Muslim, the original jihadist, has never been willing to tolerate a sovereign Jewish state, regardless the evidence of a perpetual Jewish presence in the land of Israel. As Jamil Mardam, Syria’s Foreign Minister, told Herzl’s friend Moshe Shertok back in 1943, “You won’t find a single Arab leader who would voluntarily acquiesce in your becoming the majority in Palestine…there can be no mutually agreed settlement as no Arab statesman will accept a Jewish majority.” Islam’s jihadist is willing to look only so far back into the history of the Middle East as serves his religion’s imperialistic dictates. About the fate of the Jews, even Jews running from the Holocaust, he couldn’t care less.

For every European and American kingmaker who travelled to the Middle East “to do the impossible for the ungrateful,” to borrow a phrase from Karl E. Meyer and Shareen Blair Brysac, there was always an Arab Muslim waiting there who dreamed of empire and was more than willing to accept their money, even at the expense of the common Arab who was simply trying to raise a family and live in relative security. The reasons given today to justify Islamic jihad are simply born of a religiously taught hatred of everything Western but have no valid connection to the real history of the Middle East and therefore no credence when used to inculpate the West for the volatile instability of the region.

Arab Muslim empires rose and then came crashing down long before Western powers took their turn at exploiting the Middle East’s natural resources. One has only to take a short read into the history of Islam’s many kings and caliphs to realize that the jihad waged back then, with Arab Muslim killing Arab Muslim, was not at all dissimilar to the jihad waged today, with Arab Muslim killing Arab Muslim, Jew and Christian: jihad, not because there is any sense to it, or because there is an end that could possibly justify the means, but only because Islam and its tenets advocate jihad and for no other reason.

The jihadist is not interested in ancient history and how that history can never justify his crimes against humanity. The jihadist is only interested in the last twenty four hours and the measure of harm he has loosed into the world.

SOURCE

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Oprah the hater

She still hates America even though it has given her so much  -- in money and otherwise

Oprah Winfrey made some shocking comments in a recent interview with BBC, when she alluded that the only reason someone wouldn’t like President Barack Obama is if they were a racist.

When the interviewer asked Oprah if she thought people were against Obama because he was black, she responded, “There’s no question.”

She went on to say that she thinks “there’s a level of disrespect for the office that occurs. And that occurs in some cases because he’s African American. There’s no question about that. And it’s the kind of thing no one ever says, buy everybody is thinking.”

Apparently Oprah isn’t aware that her comments don’t set her apart. Instead, they group her with a slew of Obama supporters that claim that disapproval of the president stems from either religious or racial discrimination. And she clearly hasn’t paid attention to stations like MSNBC or “celebrities” like Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson.

She certainly isn’t alone in her accusations, but continued on to make a statement about racisms in general, stating that “As long as people can be judged by the color of their skin, problem’s not solved.”

So when does Oprah see racism coming to an end?

“There are still generations of people, older people, who were born and bred and marinated in it, in that prejudice and racism,” Oprah said, “and they just have to die.”

That’s right, according to Oprah, when everyone who ever had a racist ancestor dies, America will be set free from all of its problems.

SOURCE

There is a  new  lot of postings by Chris Brand just up -- on his usual vastly "incorrect" themes of race, genes, IQ etc.

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For more blog postings from me, see  TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, GREENIE WATCH,  POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, and Paralipomena (Occasionally updated) and Coral reef compendium. (Updated as news items come in).  GUN WATCH is now mainly put together by Dean Weingarten.

List of backup or "mirror" sites here or  here -- for 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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Is Obama a psychopath?

 Coach Dave Daubenmire correctly diagnoses Obama's pathology below

I am not asking this with my tongue in my cheek. I am as serious as a judge. As I sit here and write, I am listening to Mr. Obama's press conference. Something is very wrong with this guy. He is either mentally ill or demon possessed. Either choice is a possibility. But something is definitely wrong with him. He seems somehow inhuman.

I’ve lived my entire life in a world of athletic competition. I understand the human emotion that is associated with winning and losing. I grew up with the opening theme of ABC's Wide World of Sports continuously playing in my head. (If I close my eyes I can hear the voice of Jim McKay bouncing around the corners of my brain.)

The thrill of victory and the agony of defeat brings with it emotions. That is why we watch sports. We love the human drama of athletic competition. That's why we have press conferences after games. We love to hear the emotional reaction to winning and losing.

President Obama is a hollow man. He has no feelings. He feels no emotions. The human drama of competition seems to have no outward effect on him.

Can I be blunt? He got his butt kicked. Every talking head on the tube is pointing the finger at his unpopularity. “The bloom is off of the rose. It is a direct repudiation of his policies. The era of Obama is over.” It is as if everyone knows it but him.

Politics is nothing more than a beauty contest, and Obama has been voted off of the island. But he acts as if he still owns the island. There seems to be no agony in his defeat. It is not normal. His emotions do not line up with reality. He is either sick or he is possessed. I'm not laughing. I am serious.

His party rejected him. The American people rejected him. His fawning media has turned their affections in a different direction, yet he shows no emotion. I watch him on the TV. I watch him in his press conference. I watch his eyes as he responds to the media's questions. I believe he is a sick, dangerous man.

I Googled the word ‘sociopath’. “A person with a psychopathic personality whose behavior is antisocial, often criminal, and who lacks a sense of moral responsibility or social conscience.”

Bingo. That's him. That's the guy living the life of President of the United States.

I went a bit further and Googled “Characteristics of a Sociopath.” Read it for yourself. Permit me to summarize. You recognize his mental illness by these traits.

- An oversized ego.
- Lying and showing manipulative behavior.
- Incapable of showing empathy.
- No lack of shame or remorse.
- Staying eerily calm in dangerous situations.
- Behaving irresponsibly or with extreme impulsivity.
- Having few close friends.
- Being charming ---but only superficially.
- Living by the pleasure principle.
- Showing disregard for societal norms.
- Having intense eyes.

The man is either sick or non-human. He does not react like a normal human being.

Consider this from the article:

“Sociopaths can be very charismatic and friendly -- because they know it will help them get what they want. “They are expert con artists and always have a secret agenda,” Rosenberg said. "People are so amazed when they find that someone is a sociopath because they’re so amazingly effective at blending in. They’re masters of disguise. Their main tool to keep them from being discovered is a creation of an outer personality."

As M.E. Thomas described in a post for Psychology Today: "You would like me if you met me. I have the kind of smile that is common among television show characters and rare in real life, perfect in its sparkly teeth dimensions and ability to express pleasant invitation."

Reading that gives me the willies...how about you?

No emotions. Cold. Calculating. He doesn't even know that he lost. He is unaware that he has been rejected. He acts as if it is business as usual while the entire Democratic Party is wishing for a moving van out in front of the White House.

In my coaching career I lost a lot of games. I know how it feels. I know how it makes you react. He has destroyed his party. His friends are running for cover. But he acts as if he has just won.

Sociopaths are dangerous. Some famous sociopaths in recent history include Charles Manson, Ted Bundy, Jeffrey Dahmer, and John Wayne Gazy.

You laugh at me. You ridicule what I say because I compare him to serial killers. Go ahead. Laugh. He displays all of the characteristics of the above mentioned goons. They were charismatic and likeable.

SOURCE

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Removing the root cause of car attacks on Israelis

In the postmortems of the terrorist car attacks in Jerusalem, it is easy to see the writing on the wall.

Ibrahim al-Akary, the terrorist who on Wednesday ran over crowds of people waiting to cross the street and catch the Jerusalem Light Rail, was the brother of one of the terrorist murderers freed in exchange for IDF hostage Gilad Schalit. He had placed the photograph on his Facebook page of Moataz Hejazi, the terrorist killed by police after shooting Yehuda Glick outside the Begin Heritage Center last Wednesday.

A few days before Abdur Rahman Slodi got into his car and mowed down three-month-old Chaya Zissel Braun and a dozen other pedestrians two weeks ago, PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas exhorted the Palestinians to prevent Jews from visiting the Temple Mount, Judaism’s holiest site, by all means possible.

The question is, what was the trigger and how was it pulled?

Today the main factor unifying al-Qaida and Islamic State and their sister groups and followers in the region and worldwide is ideology. They all share the same hatred of the West, of all religions other than Islam and of all competing forms of Islam. They all seek the establishment of a global caliphate that will rule the world under the banner of Islam.

As Pace notes, they see themselves as soldiers in a long-term struggle. Their goal is not necessarily to conquer their target populations. Rather they seek to make life impossible for target societies. Mass chaos sowed by constant, low intensity, near-scatter-shot attacks can over time be sufficient to break the will of a targeted society or military organization to fight them.

Ideology is not something that people pick up or discard quickly or easily. For a person to be attracted to the jihadist cause he has to undergo indoctrination over a significant period of time. You cannot incite a person to strike if he hasn’t already been indoctrinated in a manner that makes him amenable to your incendiary call to action.

And this brings us back to the Palestinians and the trigger for the attacks conducted by independent or semi-independent terrorist operatives.

With the exception of Pakistani students in madrassas, few societies have undergone the mass indoctrination that the Palestinians have undergone over the past 20 years of Palestinian Authority rule. From the cradle to the grave, and most significantly in the school system, Palestinians are indoctrinated to hate Jews and seek the violent destruction of Israel. They are told that it is an Islamic duty to fight Jews and destroy Israel. This is as true in regular PA schools as it is in schools run by the United Nations Relief Works Agency (UNRWA).

We are experiencing today in Jerusalem a decentralized terrorist campaign rooted in the 20-year indoctrination of the Palestinians.

Yes, Hamas and Fatah still operate terrorist cells and units that are members of terrorist hierarchies. But at the same time, they have used a model similar to al-Qaida’s in developing semi-independent and wholly independent networks of operatives and operational cells. These independent cells are highly motivated and are willing to wait until they receive generalized signals from their leadership to strike.

So it was for instance in June with the kidnapping and murder of the three teenagers in Gush Etzion. A few weeks before the kidnapping took place, from his home in Qatar, Hamas chief Khaled Mashaal remarked that Hamas needed more hostages to trade for jailed terrorists.

The terrorists in Hebron were motivated to strike. With the financial assistance of Saleh al-Arouri, the Hamas ideologue and operational commander in Turkey, they were able to purchase what they needed for the kidnapping. And when Mashaal said the time had come to kidnap Israelis, the countdown to the kidnap and murder of Naftali Fraenkel, Gil-Ad Shaer and Eyal Yifrah began.

The cell was isolated and tiny. Mashaal’s order was indirect.
In the case of the violence in Jerusalem, indoctrination in UNRWA schools in places like Shuafat refugee camp where Akary lived, not to mention throughout Judea, Samaria and Gaza, has raised generations of Arabs who hate Israel and Jews.

Owing to this indoctrination, when presented with mass incitement by preachers in the mosques, and most importantly by the official Palestinian Authority media, these calls for violence are immediately embraced on a massive scale. Indeed, the comfort level that the Arabs of Jerusalem feel today in supporting terrorism may well be unprecedented.

In dealing with this burgeoning, decentralized terrorist campaign, aside from taking action to protect bus stops with various barricades, Israel needs to go after the triggers.  It needs to break up the indoctrination system.  And it needs to destroy the Palestinian leadership’s ability to communicate their incendiary messages.

Since UNRWA schools operating in Jerusalem engage in anti-Semitic indoctrination, Jerusalem municipal authorities must give them the choice of using Israeli textbooks or shutting down. If Israel wishes to assert its sovereignty, UNRWA schools would be a good place to start. Beyond that, preachers in mosques who incite murder and call for the destruction of Israel should be arrested.
As for the PA’s communications networks, all of the radio and television signals operating in the PA come from the Israeli electromagnetic spectrum. It is time to shut them down.

As Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reiterated on Wednesday, Abbas is directly inciting the murderous attacks on Jerusalem through the PA media organs. The way to protect Jerusalem is to remove him and his Hamas partners from the airwaves.

In the long term, it is imperative that Israel provide incentives to both the Jerusalem Arabs and the Palestinians to integrate peacefully with Israeli society. But before the government can seriously engage in this task, it needs to destroy the triggers of this terrorist onslaught.

It is not enough to complain about Palestinian indoctrination and incitement. It is time for Israel to end them.

SOURCE

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Why Obama Hates Netanyahu

The writer below is too polite to mention it but I think a major reason why Obama hates Netanyahu is that Netanyahu is a real man -- while Obama has never been anything but a parasite

Obama's foreign policy was supposed to reboot America's relationship with the rest of the world. Old allies would become people we occasionally talked to. Old enemies would become new allies. Goodbye Queen, hello Vladimir. Trade the Anglosphere for Latin America's Marxist dictatorships. Replace allied governments in the Middle East with Islamists and call it a day for the Caliphate.

Very little of that went according to plan.

Obama is still stuck with Europe. The Middle East and Latin American leftists still hate America. The Arab Spring imploded. Japan, South Korea and India have conservative governments.

And then there's Israel. The original plan was to sideline Israel by focusing on the Muslim world. Instead of directly hammering Israel, the administration would transform the region around it. The American-Israeli relationship would implode not through conflict, but because the Muslim Brotherhood countries would take its place.

That didn't work out too well. Instead of gracefully pivoting away, Obama loudly snubbed Netanyahu. A photo of him poking his finger in Netanyahu's chest captured the atmosphere. Netanyahu delivered a speech that Congress cheered. And Obama came to see him as a domestic political opponent.

The torrent of anti-Israel leaks from the administration is a treatment usually reserved for political opponents. The snide remarks by White House spokesmen and the anonymous personal attacks on Netanyahu in the media echo domestic hate campaigns out of the White House like Operation Rushbo.

Netanyahu wasn't just the leader of a country that the left hated. He had become an honorary Republican.

When Obama met with him, Netanyahu firmly but politely challenged him on policy. He has kept on doing so ever since, including during his most recent visit. At a time when most leaders had gotten the message about shunning Romney, Netanyahu was happy to give him a favorable reception. Netanyahu clearly wanted Romney to win and Obama clearly wished he could pull a Clinton and replace Netanyahu. But Netanyahu's economic policies were working in exactly the same way that Obama's weren't.

The two men hate each other not only on a personal level, but also on a political level.

Netanyahu had successfully pushed through a modernization and privatization agenda that on this side of the ocean is associated with Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper or Wisconsin governor Scott Walker. It's likely what Romney would have done which is one more reason the two men got along so well. Obama's visible loathing for Romney is of a piece with his hatred for Netanyahu.

He doesn't just hate them. He hates what they stand for. That's why Harper and Netanyahu get along so well. It's part of why Obama and Netanyahu get along so badly.

More HERE

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A new recipe

I rarely update my recipe blog these days but I have just put up a recipe for a diet curry

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For more blog postings from me, see  TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, GREENIE WATCH,  POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, and Paralipomena (Occasionally updated) and Coral reef compendium. (Updated as news items come in).  GUN WATCH is now mainly put together by Dean Weingarten.

List of backup or "mirror" sites here or  here -- for 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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Leftist rage

Rage is what Leftists do

What is best in life? Well, experiencing Tuesday night’s meltdown at Democratic Underground is certainly nowhere near the top of the list, but it was halfway entertaining — for a Tuesday night.

Below are the greatest hits from a night filled with intense rage, frustration, more rage, sadness and confusion among users at the interactive leftist website.

FLyellowdog: ”This whole election is leaving me with some very scary feelings. And I’m simply sick…physically sick…and emotionally drained.”

tinfoil hat YouTube screenshot Ephemeral Rift

sammy750: “The GOP is the biggest scandal of the century. Huge voter suppression and fixing the voting machines so they didn’t register right. The GOP is the biggest fraud, AG Holder will be busy undoing all the GOP fraud wins”

global1: “So The American Voters Have Rewarded The ReThugs For Shutting Down The Government….obstructing everything President Obama wanted to accomplish; sticking with the NRA; refusing to raise the minimum wage; refusing to deal with the immigration issue; piling more debt on students/student loans; voting to repeal ACA over 50 times when the American People finally had some relief on health insurance; and the list goes on and on. What is wrong with the American People. They believe the lies. They like to be lied to. They vote against their better interests.”

akbacchus_BC: “This is what I do not understand, how could the Rethugs get elected again? What is wrong with some Americans? Did Democrats not vote? Now the President cannot get anything done unless it is by Executive Order. I really wish the President could tell the rethugs to piss off and sign as much policies by Executive Order and piss them off more and they cannot impeach him, bunch a idiots. This President tried to work with the assholes but man, they did not want to work with him.”

hedgehog: “So, MSNBC is predicting the Republicans hold the House – How? Is it all due to gerrymandering?”

Beatle: “What the fuck is the matter with this nation? Things aren’t getting better, they’re getting worse, and as hard as we try and yell and cuss, no one is doing shit about all the criminality going on with the banks, politicians, and anyone that breaks the law as long as they’re filthy rich. I’m so fucking pissed off right now I can’t see straight. My blood pressure is sky high. I need to take it easy.”

KingCharlemagne: “I am deeply disappointed in my fellow Americans tonight. The suffering that will ensue was and is mostly entirely preventable. So I am disappointed that we shall have to endure this suffering for at least 2 years now because Americans could not see through the lies sold to them by this pack of charlatans, demagogues and scalawags. Yes, the Democrats largely ran away from President Obama after allowing the Republicans to frame the race as “Obama, Obama, Obama” and that bespeaks a party in trouble. But in the final analysis, voters chose to vote against their self-interest and against the interest of their compatriots for what? To ‘send a message’ to Dems? The reality is that things will not get better in the next two years. They will get worse and possibly much, much worse. And so I am disappointed that my fellow Americans chose a path that will cause suffering for their countrymen when I have to believe most of them did not seek to cause such suffering.”

BlueDemKev: “MSNBC has called Colorado for Gardner. WTF, Colorado? Are you that pissed off because Pres. Obama asked Congress for some token gun regulations after 20+ elementary school students were slaughtered just a week before Christmas?”

Ampersand Unicode: ”I’m actually scared — as in can’t-sleep-tonight-Halloween-came-five-days-late scared — of the GOP fascists taking over the Kennedy state. I voted for Coakley but am not optimistic because of all the endorsements Baker has gotten and the past history of electing GOP governors (Romney, Weld). I’m also looking to leave because MA just voted to keep the filthy casinos. Also, there is a gun store that just popped up out of nowhere down the street from my house on a main street. I no longer feel safe in my neighborhood or my state. Should I find a way to move to Vermont where Bernie and the sane people live? Or if I can’t afford to leave, should I just do myself in? I honestly am terrified that we’re living in the decline of the Weimar Republic and the rise of the Reich.”

DebJ: “Tonight doesn’t make me wish I had quit smoking. An early death would be merciful compared to a long slow one with insufficient nutrition and no health care, which is what is coming up. I’m torn, can’t decide in which order to cry and vomit and get sick.”

2naSalit: “If anyone thinks we, as a nation, have any chance of saving ourselves from our wanton disregard for the biosphere which supports our existence, this election has proven we don’t really give a rat’s ass about our own sorry asses (or that of anyone else). Unless there is some major infrastructure destroying catastrophe that some of us survive before the biosphere is toast, our species is in for some big trouble. I suspect we are in for a lot more trouble than any of us have bargained for. With our distractions keeping us from looking around and seeing how destructive our way of life has become and that we could have each personally done something to change it… and we have no one but ourselves to blame. So brace yourselves for the gloom and doom of losing your habitat, like most other species have been facing for quite a while now, because we’re next on the menu.”

CK_John: “I think the President has to put resignation on the table and not give them the satisfaction of being impeached.”

whereisjustice: “If you’ve been to Asia and witnessed the slums and factory farms filled with impoverished workers, the US has just taken another step in that direction tonight. Sure, we’re not there yet. But that doesn’t mean we aren’t going to get there. Like global warming, the change isn’t noticeable when all you look at is your backyard thermometer. It’s coming. Sooner or later it is going to catch up with you and your children.”

upaloopa: “So now that we have nothing more to lose how about taking our party on a hard turn to the left. Let’s come up with every progressive idea we can and put together a liberal platform for 2016. Never compromise with the devil”

brett_jv: “I wish I could chalk it up to ‘All this election PROVES is that 50% the people who showed up to vote in 6 states … are mouth-breathing, brain-washed, Faux-Watching knuckle-draggers’, but the reality is, it goes MUCH deeper than that. Nearly 1/2 the country are this way. This is proof that lies and propaganda … work. This election shows that a great many people in this country … are actually either morons, or they are evil.”

zelduh: “Can we PLEASE let them secede? I think it is time to acknowledge that uniting the North and the South is a three hundred fifty year-old failed experiment. Next time any political leader in the South mentions that they want to secede, we should jump at the opportunity to untangle the country from the Red states. This country cannot have clean air, water and earth in many states, because Republicans. This country cannot have science in many states, because Republicans. This country cannot have rational, thoughtful, logical gun regulations, because Republicans. Women cannot exercise control over their own bodies in many states, because Republicans.”

SOURCE

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100% of Newly Elected GOP Senators Campaigned on Repealing Obamacare

Every new GOP senator who won in last night’s election campaigned on repealing Obamacare.

Senators Cory Gardner (R-Colo.), David Perdue (R-Ga.), Joni Ernst (R-Iowa), Thom Tillis (R-N.C.), Tom Cotton (R-Ark.), James Lankford (R-Okla.), Steve Daines (R-Mont.), Mike Rounds (R-S.D.), Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.), and Ben Sasse (R-Neb.) all ran on a platform of repealing Obamacare.

Gardner touted patient-centered care and a full repeal and replacement of President Obama’s Affordable Care Act (ACA), otherwise known as Obamacare.

“Small businesses and the American people cannot afford President Obama’s countless new regulations and tax increases. There is a right way and a wrong to improve our country’s healthcare system, and the President’s healthcare law just isn’t working. We need patient-centered care and lower costs. It is not too late to start over with a full repeal and replacement of the President’s healthcare law,” Gardner said in a statement.

Daines echoed those statements, also calling to repeal and replace Obamacare.

“Every American wants healthcare at a reasonable cost. No American wants a complicated plan full of false promises, special political favors, and costs we cannot afford. We should repeal Obamacare and implement an affordable health care system that actually improves the quality of health care,” he said.

Perdue noted on his campaign page that he was one of the millions who had their personal health care policy cancelled and would support free market solutions to replace Obamacare.

“Obamacare is an overreaching federal program that will actually reduce the quality of health care and increase costs. I am one of the millions of Americans that had my personal policy cancelled after being told I could keep it. To make matters worse, Obamacare is discouraging full-time job creation. The consequences of politicians passing a massive bill without reading it continue to emerge. We need to repeal Obamacare and replace it with more affordable free market solutions,” Perdue said on his campaign page.

Cotton signed the Club for Growth’s “Repeal-It!” pledge which states, “I hereby pledge to the people of my district/state upon my election to the U.S. House of Representatives/U.S. Senate to sponsor and support legislation to repeal any federal health care takeover passed in 2010, and replace it with real reforms that lower health care costs without growing government.”

Ernst and Tillis have said they would repeal Obamacare.....

Louisiana’s Senate GOP candidate, Bill Cassidy, has also voiced support for the repeal of Obamacare, listing 10 reasons why it should be replaced. As a practicing physician, Cassidy has said that the ACA would drive up costs, endangers access to care, destroys jobs and increases taxes just to name a few.

“By definition, a law that creates over 150 boards, bureaucracies, and commissions does not empower patients. Repealing this law is the first step to enacting real health care reform that lowers costs and expands access to quality health care for all Americans,” Cassidy said.

SOURCE

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How Democrats Lost the absurd 'War on Women'

Democrats with double-X chromosomes (and some with a Y one) were on a mission to end the supposed Republican “war on women.” Flanked by gender-driven generals nationwide vying for votes, and applauded by the likes of DNC Chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz, these crusaders took to the campaign trail on a quest to bring fallopian freedom to the fairer sex everywhere.

But when their day of glory came, they went down to defeat, and went down hard.

Not once, not twice, but in state after state across the nation where voters recognized the hyperbolic rhetoric as smoke and mirrors distracting from the absence of real policy proposals, and where they tired of seeing sensible discussions discarded in favor of a campaign-trail version of the Vagina Monologues. Democrats may have treated women voters as ignorant dupes, but it didn’t work.

Take Sandra Fluke, for example, the poster child for unbridled sex, whose core political ideology centers on the demand for government-provided contraception to support her sexual escapades. She gained national fame by testifying to Congress of the need for contraception she and other young women couldn’t possibly pay for themselves (even for $9 a month at Walgreens). Fluke failed in her bid for California State Senate – losing by more than 21 points. War on women? Voters didn’t buy it.

Or consider progressive darling Wendy Davis, who famously filibustered in the Texas State House for the right to dismember unborn babies at the latest stages of pregnancy. Davis lost her bid for Texas governor by a whopping 21 points – the worst showing for Democrats in a Texas gubernatorial race since 1998. What’s more, Davis couldn’t even win among women, losing by nine points among all women and 25 points among married women. War on women? Don’t use that lie to mess with Texas.

Then there was Colorado Sen. Mark Udall, who might as well have been a woman given his campaign was so focused on the “war on women” that the press dubbed him “Mark Uterus.” Even the reliably liberal Denver Post grew tired of Udall’s single-issue campaign and instead endorsed his pro-life Republican opponent, Corey Gardner. Udall lost his Senate seat, winning only 52% of women voters among his typically Democrat-leaning constituency. War on women? Coloradans weren’t that high.

And that’s not to delve into the details of the “war on women” candidates endorsed by sex-magazine Cosmopolitan. Of the 12 candidates backed by Cosmo (none of whom, incidentally, were Republican), only two won. Aside from Fluke and Davis, Tuesday’s losers included Staci Appel (Iowa), Mary Burke (Wisconsin), Alison Lundergan Grimes (Kentucky), Michelle Nunn (Georgia), Amanda Renteria (California), and Rep. Carol Shea-Porter (New Hampshire).

Might these losses actually suggest the war on women is real? Could these women’s gender have sunk them?

Not so fast. Women actually did win on Election Night – and win big. But many were women whose political aims extended beyond abortion and contraceptives to issues women – and men – actually care about: the economy, national security, federal spending and out-of-control debt. Rather than insulting women by insinuating their vote is based purely on particular feminine needs, the conservative women who ran and won actually believe females are capable of rising above their hormonal cycles to critically evaluate the issues facing our nation.

Take Joni Ernst, for example. Forget an imaginary “war on women.” This combat veteran actually fought in a real war – Iraq. Now, she’s poised to become the first female senator from Iowa and the first female veteran in the Senate. War on women? Ernst was too busy vowing to make Washington’s big spenders squeal to claim imaginary oppression.

Or take conservative Mia Love of Utah, who made history by becoming the first black Republican woman elected to the U.S. House. War on women? Only if you look at how women have suffered under Obama’s failed policies.

Then there’s Elise Stefanik of New York, who at age 30 just became the youngest woman ever elected to Congress. War on women? As an unashamed pro-life advocate, Stefanik was automatically disqualified from joining the ranks of the war’s self-declared victims.

Speaking of abortion, the “war on women” mantra also failed on the ballot initiative level. Voters in Tennessee, for example, voted to amend the state’s constitution to clarify that it does not require taxpayer funding for or guarantee any right to abortion. War on women? Only if you count the millions of unborn women who have been slaughtered in the name of “choice.”

As political analyst Charles Krauthammer so accurately noted, “I think this is the end of the ‘War on Women,’ and the Democrats have lost it.”

Here’s the bottom line: Burdened by this administration’s policy disasters and absent any real plans to remedy the mess, Democrats sought to divert attention from their stunning failures by campaigning on a phony “war on women.” But women didn’t buy it. Instead, it backfired, and backfired big.

SOURCE

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For more blog postings from me, see  TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, GREENIE WATCH,  POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, and Paralipomena (Occasionally updated) and Coral reef compendium. (Updated as news items come in).  GUN WATCH is now mainly put together by Dean Weingarten.

List of backup or "mirror" sites here or  here -- for 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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GOP does well at State level



After a day of double-checking partisan composition numbers in the more than 6,000 legislative races this year, the extent of Republican success in legislative and governor’s elections is mostly clear. Suffice it to say, it was a banner election for the GOP.

There are two pieces still undecided. Control of the Colorado House remains up in the air pending tallies in several very close races. The Alaska governor is still undecided and will not be settled until absentee ballots are collected and tabulated. And ,of course, all of the results are preliminary pending certification and recounts. It does appear, though, that all is settled at the state level except for the Colorado House and Alaska governor.

Republicans ran the table, taking the majority in 10 legislative chambers previously held by Democrats. Those chambers were:

Colorado Senate (conceivable that Dems could still hold on after recounts)

Maine Senate
Minnesota House
Nevada Assembly
Nevada Senate
New Hampshire House
New York Senate
New Mexico House
Washington Senate
West Virginia House.
The West Virginia Senate is currently tied at 17 D-17 R.

For governors, Republicans netted three after switching seats in Arkansas, Illinois, Maryland and Massachusetts. Democrat Tom Wolf won a governorship in Pennsylvania.

Factoring in all of those changes, here are the bottom line numbers (the Nebraska unicameral Legislature is nonpartisan):
Legislatures: 29 R, 11 D, 8 split and 1 undecided (CO)
Chambers: 67 R, 29 D, 1 tied and 1 undecided (CO House)
Governors: 33 R, 16 D and 1 undecided (AK)
State governments: 23 R, 7 D, 18 divided and 1 undecided (AK)

It appears that Republicans will have a net gain of between 350 and 375 seats and control over 4,100 of the nation’s 7,383 legislative seats. Republicans gained seats in every region of the country and in all but about a dozen legislative chambers that were up this year.

Remarkably, given the Republican wave that swept across the nation, Republicans emerged from the election controlling exactly the same number of state governments as they controlled before the election. Democrats lost many chambers and governors, but most of those states now have divided state government.

Alaska could still stay Republican if incumbent governor Sean Parnell pulls out a victory. He currently trails his challenger by more than 3,000 votes.

The sharp increase in divided state governments could lead to gridlock. Legislators and governors, however, are more likely to seek compromise especially when it involves the budget since all states but one must pass balanced budgets every year.

A Republican wave swept over the states, leaving Democrats at their lowest point in state legislatures in nearly a century.

Everything went in the direction of the GOP as Republicans seized new majorities in the West Virginia House, Nevada Assembly and Senate, New Hampshire House, Minnesota House and New York Senate, The West Virginia Senate is now tied. All results are unofficial pending recounts.

Control of several legislative chambers was still up in the air early Wednesday as counting continued in several tight races that will determine control of the Colorado Senate, New Mexico House and Maine Senate.

The lone bright spot for Democrats was holding majorities in the Iowa Senate and Kentucky House.

The overall number of divided state governments will increase with changes in governor in places such as Massachussets, Illinois, Pennsylvania and Maryland along with the legislatures in West Virginia, Minnesota and New York.

The Vermont legislature will have to choose the state's governor because incumbent Democrat Peter Shumlin did not pass the 50 percent threshold. The Democratic General Assembly will almost certainly install Shumlin as governor.

Fun facts:

Ted Kennedy Jr., son of the late U.S. senator and a nephew of President John F. Kennedy, was elected to the Connecticut Senate on his first try for policial office. Democrats held onto their majority despite a furious push from Republicans.

Teenager Saira Blair was part of the Republican surge in West Virginia, so she will become the nation’s youngest legislator at the age of 18 when she takes her oath of office.

Update 10:21 a.m. ET: Republicans pad their wins by taking control of Washington Senate, Colorado Senate and New Mexico House. State legislative chambers now stand at 66 Republican, 28 Democrat,  one tie and two undecided.

SOURCE

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The Most Important  Gains Might Be GOP Governor Wins

Gov. Scott Walker, a likely 2016 presidential contender, is arguably the most admired Republican governor among party members of all stripes for his exemplary governing of a blue state while simultaneously successfully fighting off multiple assaults by the entire Wisconsin Democrat party.

After inheriting a massive deficit from his Democrat predecessor, Walker now has the state nearly $1 billion in black. He cut taxes by more than $2 billion, spurring an economic revival that reduced unemployment from 7.7% to 5.5% and raised per capita income by 9%. Confidence in the state’s economy among employers skyrocketed.

Perhaps more than anything else though, he won the respect and admiration of decent Americans for his stalwart stand against the massive barrage of every dirty trick in the Democrat playbook, including false charges of campaign financing violations by Democrat district attorneys, all of which were summarily tossed out of court. Walker’s third win in four years only solidifies his 2016 presidential résumé.

Gov. Sam Brownback of Kansas likewise governed as a fiscal conservative, although his opponents were often those in his own party. He wants to reform Kansas' economy and winnow down its unfunded liabilities. His most controversial act involved cutting the state’s personal income tax by nearly half, one of the largest tax cuts in the state’s history. He also rejected the feds' money meant for setting up an exchange under ObamaCare. His efforts angered a number of “moderate” Republican lawmakers, and as payback, they stymied several of his other agenda items.

In fact, a number of “moderate Republicans” were so angry with Brownback that they formed a group named “Republicans for Davis,” his far-left Democrat challenger in yesterday’s election. The group grew to 104 members, 53 of whom are former legislators, including 37 who’ve long been out of office, but all are still politically active in the party. That 104 “Republicans” would do their best to replace a Republican with a far-left governor might indicate that Brownback lacks some negotiating skills, but it speaks volumes more about those Republicans.

Brownback’s win undermines the Leftmedia narrative of a repudiation of his conservative fiscal policies. In fact, a large percentage of conservatives and their allies see his work as a giant step in the right direction, and Kansas voters gave him a second term.

SOURCE

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Judge Rejects the 'Disparate Impact' Fraud

Attorney General hopeful Tom Perez’s race-based justice scheme surfers a major setback

On Monday, one of the Obama administration’s foremost racial arsonists was given his comeuppance by a federal judge. Labor Secretary Thomas Perez, who is on the American left’s short list for replacing U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder, was informed by Judge Richard J. Leon that his effort to find housing discrimination where none existed amounted to “wishful thinking on steroids.”

Perez sought to apply the policy of “disparate impact” to housing. Judicial Watch explains this contemptible concept. “Under the theory of ‘disparate impact,’ a defendant can be held liable for discrimination for a race-neutral policy that statistically disadvantages a specific minority group even if that negative ‘impact’ was neither foreseen nor intended,” they write. “In such cases, defendants can be forced to pay for harm caused not by their own actions, but by economic and statistical realities, even if beyond their control.” (italics original)

Leon wasn’t buying it. He characterized the attempt to legitimize disparate impact as a vehicle to expand the possibility of filing discrimination cases as “hutzpah (sic) (bordering on desperation).” “This is yet another example of an administrative agency trying desperately to write into law that which Congress never intended to sanction,” he wrote, adding that the arguments made by Obama administration attorneys were “nothing less than an artful misinterpretation” of the law.

The law to which Leon referred is the Fair Housing Act, administered by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). In February 2013, HUD made disparate impact a policy tool, one the administration employed to build discriminatory cases against mortgage lending institutions that garnered them hundreds of millions of dollars.

In July of that year, Wells Fargo paid a $175 million settlement after the Department of Justice (DOJ) accused the bank of discriminating against thousands black and Hispanic borrowers – based on loan analyses made by the bank and its independent brokers from the years 2004 and 2009. Wells Fargo admitted no wrongdoing, claiming it was settling to avoid even costlier litigation expenses. That windfall was topped by a record-setting $335 million settlement made by Bank of America in 2011, following allegations of discrimination by Countrywide Lending, purchased by Bank of America in 2008. Once again the feds used disparate impact to allege that minority borrowers had received less favorable borrowing terms than whites.

Perez is an old hand at this shakedown racket. In 2011, the DOJ created the Fair Lending Unit staffed with more than 20 lawyers, economists and statisticians, determined to ferret out discriminatory lending practices at the more than 60 banks that were targeted at the time. The man in charge of that division was Special Counsel for Fair Lending Eric Halperin. Halperin ultimately answered to none other than Tom Perez, who headed the DOJ’s Civil Rights Division.

That would be the same Tom Perez who compared bankers to KKK Klansmen, insisting the only difference between the two groups was that bankers discriminate “with a smile” and “fine print,” but were nonetheless “every bit as destructive as the cross burned in a neighborhood.”

That would also be the same Tom Perez who in 2010 railed against the housing meltdown “fueled in large part by risky and irresponsible lending practices that allowed too many Americans to get unsustainable or unaffordable home loans.” It was then he promised that once the Fair Housing Unit was up and running, it “will use every tool in our arsenal, including, but not limited to, disparate impact theory.”

Perez is determined to protect disparate impact theory from being adjudicated by the Supreme Court. On Nov. 7, 2011 the Court agreed to hear Magner v. Gallagher, a case about racial discrimination in housing. As the Weekly Standard reveals, a Supreme Court decision on the theory was utterly anathema to Perez, whose effort to make the case “go away” became his self-admitted “top priority.” The case was about several property owners who alleged that St. Paul, Minnesota’s ramped up enforcement of the city’s housing code for rental units reduced the availability of low-income rentals, creating a disparate impact affecting black Americans. The district court tossed the suit, but the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit reinstated it, complete with the concept of disparate impact. The city appealed that ruling to the Supreme Court, which was poised to decide for the first time whether disparate impact cases pursued under the auspices of the Fair Housing Act can be brought before the courts.

Perez, who has referred to disparate impact as the “lynchpin” of his civil rights agenda, didn’t want to take that chance. He managed to get the city to drop its case from the Supreme Court docket. Judicial Watch provided some of the sordid details, noting they had obtained documents “under the Minnesota Data Practices Act, showing that St. Paul City Attorney Sara Grewing arranged a meeting between the then-chief of DOJ’s Civil Rights Division, current Secretary of Labor Tom Perez, and Mayor Chris Coleman a week before the city’s withdrawal from the case, captioned Magner v. Gallagher. Following Perez’s visit, the city withdrew its case and thanked DOJ and officials at HUD for their involvement.”

In June of 2013, the Supreme Court agreed to hear another case revolving around disparate impact. Township of Mount Holly v. Mount Holly Gardens Citizens concerned the town’s efforts to redevelop a blighted neighborhood. A group of renters filed suit alleging the move violated the FHA because the majority of the renters were non-white and they were unable to afford the new mid-priced, single-family dwellings. The district court dismissed the argument ruling all the renters were equally affected. The Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit reversed that ruling, basing their decision on disparate impact.

Once again Perez prevailed, getting Mt. Holly to drop the case, and once again preventing the Supreme Court from issuing a ruling on disparate impact. Judge Leon noticed. In a stunning rebuke of Perez himself, Leon accused the Labor Secretary of gaming the system, timing cases and arranging the aforementioned settlements he found “particularly troubling.”

It ought to trouble every American that the Obama administration remains determined to codify racial discrimination based on the idea that statistics can be a viable substitute for actual intent. To image how absurd this theory truly is, one need only apply it to the National Basketball Association where a “disproportionate” number of black American athletes, relative to the percentage of the nations’s overall population, earn a living.  Should white college basketball players who weren’t drafted by the NBA be able to file a lawsuit alleging discrimination, based on nothing more than that statistical discrepancy? Absent the necessity of proving intent to discriminate, the power of the government to file discrimination charges become virtually unlimited.

Leon noted there was nothing in the wording of the FHA or anything he read regarding Congress’s intent when it passed the FHA that supported HUD’s interpretation of the law. He further noted that complying with disparate impact theories would force various entities to compile information on a number of factors, including race, religion, gender, etc., that those entities are often banned from obtaining under state law.

Perez may be forced to work overtime yet again. The Supreme Court has agreed to hear Texas Department of Housing and Community Affairs v. The Inclusive Communities Project. State officials have been sued by the Inclusive Communities Project, a Dallas-based group advocating integrated housing. The ICP alleges the state allocated a disproportionate number of federal low-income housing tax credits to minority neighborhoods, a practice that “makes dwellings unavailable in particular areas, thereby perpetuating residential segregation in the Dallas area,” the group said in court papers.

The Equal Credit Opportunity Act used to hammer Wells Fargo and Bank of America may also be affected by the ruling. Miami attorney Paul Hancock, who filed a brief backing the Lone Star state on behalf of business groups led by the American Bankers Association, illuminated the implications if the Court decides to leave the theory of disparate impact intact. “It really pushes more toward advancement of racial quotas as the only way to avoid legal claims,” he said in a phone interview.

More HERE

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For more blog postings from me, see  TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, GREENIE WATCH,  POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, and Paralipomena (Occasionally updated) and Coral reef compendium. (Updated as news items come in).  GUN WATCH is now mainly put together by Dean Weingarten.

List of backup or "mirror" sites here or  here -- for 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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Another lot of international rankings -- of prosperity, by Legatum

The countries listed as most prosperous (See below) are broadly as one would expect but there are some glaring anomalies both with the final results and the way they are calculated.  A very large absurdity is giving New Zealand a much higher ranking than Australia.  While that will undoubtedly give Kiwis a glow, it does not explain the brutal fact that migration between Australia and NZ is almost all one-way.  Kiwis flee their country and move to Australia in droves.  Real wages are much higher in Australia and there must be few Kiwis who are unaware of that. So it will be surprising news to Kiwis to hear that NZ is more prosperous than Australia.

The problem arises because "wellbeing" or "Quality of life" is included in the index and assessing that cannot be done objectively. I have not been able to pick why NZ did so well but it is certainly broadly true that NZ is a pleasant place -- as long as you don't mind earthquakes and high rates of crime and child abuse perpetrated by the Maori.

And looking in detail at the methodology used, there clearly are some oddities.  I was amused that separation of powers in government was included.  That system does prevail in the USA and France but lots of other countries get by perfectly well without it (Australia, Canada, Britain etc).  I would call that a nonsense criterion of prosperity.

Mr Obama doesn't believe in the separation of powers anyway.  He thinks he's got a "pen and a phone" with which he can usurp the legislative monopoly of Congress.

Infant mortality is another absurdity.  Cuba has a lower infant mortality than the USA,  Does that make Cuba more prosperous than the USA?  No.  It just means that American hospitals go to great lengths to succour premature births and that does not always succeed.  Similar births in Cuba would all be counted as stillborn.

And what about religious attendance? That is high in the USA, Russia and  Muslim countries but very low in Britain and Australia.  Does that mean that Russia and Muslim countries are more prosperous than Britain and Australia?  Judging by the desperate measures Muslims take in order to get into Britain and Australia, I think we once again have to say that "voting with your feet" reveals the true situation.

And what you think of climate can vary too.  Cold is most life-threatening but some people prefer it nonetheless.  Living in Alaska is a choice, after all.  I could go on ....

The graphic below summarizes the findings:



SOURCE

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A sampling of the early election results

With thanks to various authors in my Twitter feed


Obama admin official says POTUS doesn't feel "repudiated" by results. Three weeks ago he said his policies would be "on the ballot."

Adding to his accomplishment as gun salesman of the decade, @BarackObama has killed off the Democratic Party. What a guy!

Republicans Pick Up at least 8 Senate Seats -- making a Senate majority. Sen Harry Reid on the floor in his office in fetal position moaning right now.

S. Carolina's black US senator and Indian-American governor – both Republican, both handily re-elected. More of that GOP racism, right?

Incumbent Republican Paul LePage Re-elected as Governor of Maine

Thom Tillis Defeats Kay Hagan in North Carolina

Charlie Crist Fails to Unseat Florida Gov. Rick Scott

Wendy Davis clobbered in Texas

Jeffrey Katzenberg's Cash didn't save Kentucky's Alison Lundergan Grimes.  Sen. Mitch McConnell (R) re-elected

Another unbelievable story! In Maryland a #climate skeptic is getting elected governor.

Republican Charlie Baker Wins Gubernatorial Race in Deep Blue Massachusetts

Dems lost a HUGE talking point against tax cuts with Sam Brownback (R) winning re-election in Kansas.

When the #GOP is united on issues the working class cares about--jobs, wages, Obamacare, borders--they can win BIG.

Is it too late for @TomSteyer to pour another $75 million into warmist Senate Democrats?

That plaintive wail you hear is the collective sound of Democrat denialists all chanting in unison: "It's not a waaaave."

Only way tonight could have been better is if Franken lost. FU Minnesota.

Dems blaming "itches," "curses" and other such mysterious ephemera for Republican gains tonight.

Look for @BarackObama to go into full blame mode, lashing out at everyone in America.


Netanyahu watching the election results come in


Elise Stefanik, a Republican, will become the youngest woman to ever serve in Congress. Sent there by NY voters. How's that Republican War on Women going?


Republican war on women here too?


Businessman Rauner wins for the GOP in IL - amazing -  GOP is flipping GOVERNOR'S seats.  It was supposed to be a bad night for GOP govs.  Good riddance to Gov. Pat Quinn -- who is currently under federal investigation for corrupt use of public money


After Toppling RINO Eric Cantor in the primaries, economist Dave Brat Wins His Seat in Reps. for Virginia

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'Shut Up,' Holder Explained, as Ferguson Case Nears Conclusion

It’s been nearly three months since the untimely death of “gentle giant” Michael Brown on a street in Ferguson, Missouri. We recently learned from one of the multiple autopsies performed that, shortly after Brown stole goods from a convenience store and assaulted a clerk, he was shot at least once at close range in an apparent struggle for Officer Darren Wilson’s gun. He then ran away before coming back toward Wilson. It’s believed, based on autopsy and eyewitness reports, that Wilson shot a charging Brown several more times, with one head shot being the fatal wound.

But this autopsy report is only one of the items leaked from grand jury testimony in the case. The hacker group Anonymous predicts, “On or about November 10, 2014 the Grand Jury decision will be announced. Darren Wilson will NOT be indicted on ANY charges related to the murder of Mike Brown. All local police Chiefs and jail commanders have been notified to begin preparing for major civil unrest.” This nugget of information reportedly came from two separate, unrelated sources.

The leak may be designed to motivate black voters ahead of Election Day (though that may backfire). Police, on the other hand, probably hoped to delay a verdict until colder weather set in – cold means fewer protests and riots.

The constant grind of this rumor mill is wearing on Attorney General Eric Holder, who injected himself into the situation early on to stir the racial pot. Recall his 2009 declaration that America is “essentially a nation of cowards” because “average Americans simply do not talk enough with each other about race.” The problem is that only certain types of “average Americans” are allowed to lead those “conversations,” and the conversations themselves must arrive at only one conclusion: The myriad problems plaguing the black community are ultimately attributable to white privilege and racism.

Now, we wonder if Holder is working behind the scenes to shake up the Ferguson Police Department. One outcome of this intervention could be the dissolution of the Ferguson PD, folding it into the St. Louis County police department. That scenario, which some reports say has both Wilson and embattled Ferguson Police Chief Thomas Jackson resigning, is described as “the first step in a major shakeup.”

In an MSNBC interview, Holder was adamant about the situation. “I said I’m exasperated – it’s a nice way of saying I’m mad,” Holder vented. “That’s just not how things should be done with people in law enforcement. Whoever the sources of the leaks are need to shut up.”

Shut up, he explained. That does pretty well sum up the Left’s position on race.

Yet Barack Obama’s decision to get federal officials involved in the Ferguson matter has made it more of a three-ring circus – one that keeps fanning the flames of violence. (It may be helpful to compare the behavior of the hooligans who swarmed to Ferguson after the Michael Brown shooting to that of the hundreds who gathered at Cliven Bundy’s ranch in Nevada earlier this year to take part in a peaceful standoff with federal officials.) The Ferguson situation could have been handled by local and state authorities, just as the scattered protests in the wake of George Zimmerman’s not-guilty verdict from the Trayvon Martin case were, but Barack Obama and his allies were thinking about the midterm elections and the need to save a Democrat Senate – so all hands were called on deck.

Even if a grand jury clears Wilson, his career as a Ferguson police officer may well be over. But his legal troubles won’t be – odds are the “wrong” verdict from a local grand jury will only result in more rioting and prompt the Holder Justice Department to charge Wilson with violating Brown’s civil rights. We’ve seen this movie before. In the original, the star was Rodney King. It’s a remake we weren’t supposed to see in the “post-racial America” promised by Obama’s election.

SOURCE

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A shifty Leftist;  British Labour party leader can't even PRETEND  compassion convincingly


No eye contact; no sympathetic word;  an obvious discomfort at being anywhere near the  poor


The Princess Royal shows how it should be done

Ed Miliband has been accused of looking "awkward" and “terrified” while giving money to woman begging on the street.

Labour were forced to deny that Mr Miliband had given the woman who, was sitting on a pile on newspapers on a Manchester street, just 2 pence. A spokesman for the party said he had given the woman a "handful" of coins although critics on Twitter were unconvinced.

In July Mr Miliband made a high profile speech in which he said he will turn his back on photo opportunities and focus on the issues.

However during a Friday walkabout in Manchester, flanked by photographers, the Labour leader paused briefly to donate to the woman.

The speed he completed the transaction and the uncomfortable look on his face drew immediate criticism.

SOURCE

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Sugar Is Evil and Other Silly Claims in the Obesity Wars

Don’t go blaming willpower for the obesity epidemic–that’d be a “crime” according to the documentary “Fed Up,” by the producer of “An Inconvenient Truth” Laurie David and hosted by Katie Couric.

The film, whose tagline is “the film the food industry doesn’t want you to see,” presents sugar as a harmful, addictive drug and dismisses exercise as a vital component of weight loss.

“The message has been pushed on us–it’s your fault you’re fat,” says Dr. Mark Hyman in the trailer, following up with, “forget about it.”

And that’s what the 2014 film, at least on the basis of the trailer, aims to do: remove the blame from individuals and place it squarely on the shoulders of “junk food” producers.

An aggressive agenda against the sugar industry is at the heart of the film, subtly lambasting Michelle Obama’s “Let’s Move” campaign as well for its focus on exercise as a solution to obesity. According to David, there “aren’t enough hours in the day” to use exercise as the cure for obesity.

While the film claims to unveil shocking revelations about sugar, the trailer showed nothing I haven’t read in a women’s fitness magazine every month for the past ten years.  Soda is full of added sugar, supermarkets are stocked with high-calorie cereal arranged at kid-level eyesight and would you believe the sugar industry is in business–big shocker–to make money?!  How radical for a business.

What the film doesn’t appear to address enough is educating Americans about the right foods so they can make better decisions themselves–and not just wait for government intervention or an overhaul of the free market food production system.

Grocery stores aren’t only stocked with Frosted Flakes and potato chips. Stop by the produce section sometime.  They’ve never stopped selling apples, spinach, cucumbers or grapefruit –I promise.

A featured speaker in the film, Gary Taubes, claims the country is “blaming willpower” (or lack thereof) for our mass entrance into obesity–and that’s wrong, according to him. But that personal responsibility is part of the package, no matter what way you look at it.

Instead of trying to force people to make good choices by eliminating “bad” food, people should learn how food affects them so they want to make better choices for themselves. And when it comes to children, parents are the ones responsible for ensuring their children aren’t eating foods in substance or quantity that will lead to obesity.

“Years from now, we’re going to say, I can’t believe we let them get away with that,” says author Mark Bittman of the evil “junk food” industry.  But he’s wrong.

If the sugar industry is wreaking havoc on your life, you have only yourself to blame. Fast food restaurants, airports and convenience stores stock healthy options everywhere now. We have more options than ever before to feed ourselves fairly cheaply with healthy foods at every turn.

The demand for diet, exercise and nutritional education, as seen by the massive diet and exercise industry, is huge. We must respect individual dietary choices whether we like them or not.

If Laurie David and friends or anyone wants to help end obesity, they should focus on education, not elimination of junk food

SOURCE


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For more blog postings from me, see  TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, GREENIE WATCH,  POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, and Paralipomena (Occasionally updated) and Coral reef compendium. (Updated as news items come in).  GUN WATCH is now mainly put together by Dean Weingarten.

List of backup or "mirror" sites here or  here -- for 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 run-up to election day

The fate of the nation is in the hands of voters who’ve endured a barrage of TV ads, direct mail, blatant untruths and soaring rhetoric funded by untold millions of dollars. Such spending is to be expected when the government controls so much of our daily lives.

Most will sigh and say, “I can’t wait for this election to be over!” Yet the sun won’t set on Wednesday before the narrative shifts to the 2016 presidential election.

In races from the Court House to the State House to the U.S. House, Democrats have frantically attempted to distance themselves from Barack Obama during the last few months, and the situation has vacillated between pitiful and humorous. Now, the political environment on the Left has been downgraded to pure desperation.

Let’s adapt Jeff Foxworthy’s “you might be a redneck if…” approach (also used by Mark Alexander earlier this year to spot liberals generally) to identify panicking Democrats.

You might be a desperate Democrat running on the 2014 ballot if you claim your own constituents are racist and sexist.

Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-LA), fighting for her political life tied directly to Barack Obama’s policies, declared her opponents to be those of the South who won’t vote for women or minorities, specifically blacks. “I’ll be very, very honest with you,” said Landrieu in what’s our first clue she’s lying. “The South has not always been the friendliest place for African-Americans. It’s not always been a good place for women to present ourselves. It’s more of a conservative place.”

She later doubled down, adding, “Everyone knows this is the truth, and I will continue to speak the truth even as some would twist my words seeking political advantage.”

Bless your heart, Mary, you must’ve forgotten about Louisiana’s dynamic Democrat duo of Governor Kathleen Blanco (female) and New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin (black), who grossly mismanaged the response to Hurricane Katrina.

You might be a desperate Democrat in 2014 if you claim Republicans believe slavery (in the sense of blacks on a plantation) still exists.

Rep. Charlie Rangel (D-NY), most renowned for tax fraud, declared Republicans to be Civil War era Confederates: “Some of them believe that slavery isn’t over and they think they won the Civil War!”

Obviously, he thinks the key to winning in New York is to insult the intellect of voters. He claims slavery still exists while ignoring the fact that it was the actions of Republicans who abolished slavery and amended the Constitution to allow voting of minorities. Unfortunately, he’s probably correct in his assumption.

You might be a desperate Democrat in 2014 if you repeat the claim that Republicans will impeach Obama if they win in November.

A chorus of the chattering Left has frequently repeated this trope over the last few months, but just last week, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) fretted, “Frankly, a Republican House and Senate could go beyond shutting down the government – they could waste months of our lives on impeachment.”

Yeah, that’s right. Voters are asked to believe the guy who’s left more than 350 bills passed by the House dry-rotting on his desk as he leads the refrain sung only by the desperate Left about obstruction and impeachment.

Finally, you might be a desperate Democrat in 2014 if in Georgia, North Carolina, Maryland or insert-the-name-of-your-state you’ve seen campaign fliers referencing the unrest and violence in Ferguson, Jim Crow laws or even lynching.

It is 2014. Yet the turnout tool used by the party of the people, the Democrats, is not to address the historically high unemployment of blacks. It’s not to discuss horrific black-on-black crime or the incredibly high out-of-wedlock births spurred on by a government that rewards its citizens trapped in welfare dependence (poverty plantations, if you will). Oh, no, desperate Democrats spread fear and fuel a division that is, for the most part, conjured up by the hustlers of race who “lead” the, ahem, progressive party.

Tragically, it also might be noted: You might be viewed as a useful idiot voter who supports Democrats if you fall for such inflammatory dishonesty now synonymous with the failed policies of the Democrat Party.

As 2014 draws near its end, the Democrat Party, steered by the abysmal policies and platitudes of Barack Obama, coupled with the folly offered as a substitute for thoughtful debate, is pure symbolism over substance.

Those who employ and subscribe to such may take offense to the light-hearted Jeff Foxworthy approach. Yet our thoughts and beliefs determine our behavior. Said more academically, “Cogito ergo sum.” The Latin declaration translates, “I think, therefore, I am.”

Democrats of 2014, we now see exactly what you think and exactly what you are.

SOURCE

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Millennials have been hit the hardest by ObamaCare's insurance premium increases, new study says

Young people who have, under the threat of a punitive tax, purchased health insurance coverage on the individual market have seen their premiums skyrocket under ObamaCare. While premiums have increased substantially for everyone, a new study shows that millennials have seen larger increases than their older counterparts:

Average insurance premiums in the sought-after 23-year-old demographic rose most dramatically, with men in that age group seeing an average 78.2 percent price increase before factoring in government subsidies, and women having their premiums rise 44.9 percent, according to a report by HealthPocket scheduled for release Wednesday.

The study, which was shared Tuesday with The Washington Times, examined average health insurance premiums before the implementation of Obamacare in 2013 and then afterward in 2014. The research focused on people of three ages — 23, 30 and 63 — using data for nonsmoking men and women with no spouses or children.

The Washington Times, which saw the study in advance, notes that premium increases for 63-year old men and women were 37.5 percent and 22.7 percent. Though increases don't account for tax credits, which offset the cost of the premiums for those individuals and families who earn less than 400 percent of the federal poverty level, the study explains that "[a]nother important consideration in the discussion of subsidized premiums is that the subsidized portion of the premium still must be paid by the government through the money it collects from the nation." In other words, the costs of ObamaCare's dramatic premium hikes have been passed onto taxpayers.

What's causing the premium hikes? HealthPocket points to new ObamaCare regulations on insurance companies, both who they must insure and benefits they're required to offer in their health plans:

The reasons for the premium increases start with the ACA’s prohibition on rejecting applicants with pre-existing conditions, which means that insurance companies must account for the additional costs of covering chronically ill or disabled people.

Another cost driver is the heightened benefit mandate. The ACA requires insurance policies to include 10 “essential health benefits,” including pediatric dental and vision care, maternity care and newborn care, even for policyholders with no children or whose children are adults.

One cost driver not mentioned by HealthPocket is ObamaCare's age-rating restrictions, which prohibit insurers from charging older people more than three times what younger policyholders pay. As well-intentioned as this policy may be, insurers just pass costs of covering older policyholders to younger enrollees.

Though the individual mandate tax will rise next year to 2 percent of annual income or $325, whichever is greater, millennials, who tend not to utilize their coverage often, are better off avoiding ObamaCare than being taken advantage of by the Obama administration.

SOURCE

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Yellen and Pope Francis vs. Pareto

“The extent and continuing increase in inequality in the United States greatly concern me,” Fed Chairwoman Janet Yellen said last week at a conference on economic opportunity and inequality sponsored by the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston.

Vilfredo Pareto would tell Dr. Yellen to relax—inequality is and always has been a constant. Pareto is known for discovering the Pareto principle, or what most people know as the 80-20 rule. Pareto observed in 1906 that 80% of the land in Italy was owned by 20% of the population and developed the principle by observing pea pods in his garden; 20% of the pods contained 80% of the peas.

The longer you live, the more you observe Pareto’s principle play out over and over in many different contexts. 80% of revenue is provided by 20% of customers. The ratio also applies to customer complaints. I dined with the owner of a Vietnamese restaurant the other night who said that 80% of his revenue came from his noodle soups, which at most comprise 20% of his menu. My experience in the nonprofit world was that 80% of donations came from 20% of those on the mailing list.

Pareto observed that the 80/20 pattern “repeated consistently whenever he looked at data referring to different time periods or different countries,” writes Richard Koch in his book The 80/20 Principle.

So while inequality has been the norm throughout history, the new Fed chair claims that, “By some estimates, income and wealth inequality are near their highest levels in the past hundred years, much higher than the average during that time span and probably higher than for much of American history before then.”

She went on to say, “The distribution of wealth is even more unequal than that of income. … The wealthiest 5% of American households held 54% of all wealth reported in the 1989 survey. Their share rose to 61% in 2010 and reached 63% in 2013. By contrast, the rest of those in the top half of the wealth distribution families that in 2013 had a net worth between $81,000 and $1.9 million held 43% of wealth in 1989 and only 36% in 2013.”

So what? As Mr. Koch explains in his book (emphasis his), if 20% own 80%, “then you can reliably predict that 10 percent would have, say, 65 percent of the wealth, and 5 percent would have 50 percent. The key point is not the percentages, but the fact that the distribution of wealth across population was predictably unbalanced.”

But Yellen has fallen in with Pope Francis, who told the United Nations assembly, “As long as the problems of the poor are not radically resolved by rejecting the absolute autonomy of markets and financial speculation and by attacking the structural causes of inequality, no solution will be found for the world’s problems.”

While it doesn’t seem like it here in America, the world is becoming freer and because of that, poverty is falling.

In the article “Pope Francis, Bad Economist,” James Harrigan and Anthony Davies wrote (link in original):

Over the past two generations, while the number of people on Earth doubled, the number of people living in extreme poverty declined by 80 percent, largely as a result of increased economic freedom globally.

Today, almost all people in economically free countries can afford cures for diseases that killed the richest people only a century ago. The average person with a cell phone today has better and quicker access to more complete information than the President of the United States enjoyed just a generation ago. A plot of land that a century ago could feed one family today can feed hundreds of families.

But the leaders of the Catholic and Monetary Churches don’t care about lifting people out of poverty—it’s envy they’re engaged in. And as Helmut Schoeck showed in his book Envy: A Theory of Social Behavior:

[W]e are least capable of acting sensibly in economic and social matters when we face, or believe we face, an envious beneficiary of our decision. This is true especially when we mistakenly tell ourselves that his envy is a direct consequence of our being better off, and will necessarily wane when we pander even to unrealistic demands. The allocation of scarce resources, in any society, is rarely optimal when our decision rests on fear of other men’s envy.

The Chairwoman continued to stoke the fires of envy with more statistics. “After adjusting for inflation, the average income of the top 5% of households grew by 38% from 1989 to 2013. By comparison, the average real income of the other 95% of households grew less than 10%.”

There is no need for Yellen’s preaching. Envy has been institutionalized in this country with the progressive income tax and inheritance taxes. As Schoeck points out, “Envy can become more easily institutionalized than, say desire or joy.” And it has.

Despite these headwinds, the serially successful and productive continue to earn and accumulate the vast share of wealth. That’s why resource investing legends Rick Rule and Doug Casey urge speculators to back entrepreneurs who have proven track records. Rule wrote on Casey Research:

A substantial body of evidence exists that it is roughly true across a variety of disciplines. In a large enough sample, this remains true within that top 20%—meaning 20% of the top 20%, or 4% of the population, contributes in excess of 60% of the utility.

The key as investors is to judge management teams by their past success. I believe this is usually much more relevant than their current exploration project.

Despite some of the highest tax rates in the world and libraries full of regulations to contend with on the national, state, and local levels, the entrepreneurial spirit overcomes, while—as expected—nonproducers hold very little wealth. “The lower half of households by wealth held just 3% of wealth in 1989 and only 1% in 2013,” Yellen told her audience. But in America, the lower half doesn’t have to stay that way and rarely does.

Pareto’s insight is that wealth will never be equal, whether under capitalism, fascism, communism, or whatever-ism. What freedom offers is the possibility to ascend from poverty to wealth with brains, hard work, and good decision making.

Pareto’s principle should not only be accepted but celebrated, and envy ridiculed, not institutionalized. Schoeck explained:

Envy’s culture-inhibiting irrationality in a society is not to be overcome by fine sentiments or altruism, but almost always by a higher level of rationality, by the recognition, for instance that more (or something different) for the few does not necessarily mean less for the others: this requires a certain capacity for calculation, a grasp of larger contexts, a longer memory; the ability, not just to compare one thing with another, but also to compare very dissimilar values in one man with those in another.

Ironically, Ms. Yellen’s zero-interest policy puts more separation between the middle class and the rich than Pareto could ever imagine. But then again, a “higher level of rationality” is severely lacking at the central bank.

SOURCE

There is a  new  lot of postings by Chris Brand just up -- on his usual vastly "incorrect" themes of race, genes, IQ etc.

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For more blog postings from me, see  TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, GREENIE WATCH,  POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, and Paralipomena (Occasionally updated) and Coral reef compendium. (Updated as news items come in).  GUN WATCH is now mainly put together by Dean Weingarten.

List of backup or "mirror" sites here or  here -- for 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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