Debunking the IQ myth (?)

This Hampshire guff (below) was debunked months ago -- and the underlying controversy goes back about 100 years.  We have always known that IQ can be split up in various ways so the only interesting issue is how well those components correlate.  From the report below you could be forgiven for thinking that they do not correlate at all.  But they do.  The correlations were somewhat lower in the Hampshire study because of his use of a restricted (high IQ) sample, but that effect is elementary statistics and does not provide an estimate for the population as a whole.  There is NOTHING new in this study from a psychometrics viewpoint:  Just another tired old attempt to deny the facts that don't align with  the "all men are equal" myth

You may be more than a single number, according to a team of Western-led researchers. Considered a standard gauge of intelligence, an intelligence quotient (IQ) score doesn't actually provide an accurate measure of one's intellect, according to a landmark study – the largest of its kind – led by Adrian Owen of the Brain and Mind Institute at Western.

The study included more than 100,000 participants from around the globe, asking them to complete 12 cognitive tests looking at their memory, reasoning, attention and planning abilities. It found a simple IQ score is misleading when assessing one's intellectual capacity. These findings were published in an article:

"Fractioning Human Intelligence," in the journal Neuron, last month. "While there are different types of intelligence, they are all influenced by one, overarching, general intelligence. And that's what we essentially measured using something like an IQ test," said Adam Hampshire of the Brain and Mind Institute, who co-authored the paper.

Hampshire noted this kind of testing is insufficient in measuring one's intellect as it doesn't take into account multiple factors and abilities – different kinds of intelligence. "In the past, when people tried to examine how intelligence is related to the brain, they generally approached it with an assumption that there is one dominant form of intelligence which is sub-served by a specific system in the brain. What we found is that the brain regions associated with whatever the 'G Factor' is – what general intelligence is – actually housed more specialized systems, not just one," he explained.

"What we did in our study, that's been different than what's been done before, is to try and understand what the structure of intelligence is by considering the way in which the brain is organized into specialized functional systems – that is, when you look at the brain and you see there are different areas that form networks and support different types of functions," he explained.

As part of the study, researchers used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) techniques with one group of participants to show that differences in cognitive abilities correspond to individual circuits in the brain.

"There are these multiple forms of intelligence and each form is in a different brain system," Hampshire said. Results from the study found that given a broader range of cognitive tasks, the differences in ability relate to at least three components of intelligence – short-term memory, reasoning and verbal aptitude.

These three components combined create an intelligence, or "cognitive profile." In other words, there is no single measure of intelligence.

Given the range of participants in the study, results also gave researchers new insight into how factors such as age, gender and the tendency to play computer games can influence brain function. While age had a profound negative effect on memory and reasoning abilities, playing computer games helped certain individuals perform better on tests assessing reasoning and short-term memory.

"My hope is that this (study) pens the debate back up on how we should conceive of and measure human intelligence. We very often hear these comparisons (of intelligence) and it's a terrible oversimplification. People should be skeptical when they hear these reports of population differences in IQ; it shouldn't be a unitary measure. Examining the social demographic correlations in more detail will help to understand them better. The patterns need to be examined with a more detailed model," Hampshire noted.

"We've identified different forms of intelligence now which relate to different systems in the brain. And we've also researched some into correlations with types of intelligence and different social demographics variables. What's next is refining that model of intelligence."

SOURCE

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A apt analogy



I would have said:  "If America WERE a tree...".  But I guess that awareness of the subjunctive mood is fast fading.

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Neither Medicaid nor Head Start Work

I have some comments on the Medicare study mentioned below on  FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC -- JR

Big government social engineers must be shaking their heads in disbelief.  The honest amongst them have to be asking how they could have been so wrong.

The effectiveness of both Medicaid and Head Start, two bulwarks of the left’s belief that massive government spending could make a difference in the lives of the poor have been exposed as ineffective.

A much anticipated study out of the state of Oregon on the health impacts of having Medicaid versus not having it has released second year data, and the results are devastating to those who believe in the power of government medicine.

The study compared health care outcomes for more than 6,000 people who were just entering the Medicare system after having no health insurance to those outcomes for just under 6,000 people who continued to not have health insurance.

Finally, Medicaid advocates would be able to prove what they instinctively knew to be true – Medicaid saves lives, and helps the health of those who receive it.

The Oregon study now throws not just a pail, but a full bucket of cold water on their expectations that Medicaid makes a difference reporting in the New England Journal of Medicine,

    “We found no significant effect of Medicaid coverage on the prevalence or diagnosis of hypertension or high cholesterol levels or on the use of medication for these conditions. Medicaid coverage significantly increased the probability of a diagnosis of diabetes and the use of diabetes medication, but we observed no significant ef- fect on average glycated hemoglobin levels or on the percentage of participants with levels of 6.5% or higher. Medicaid coverage decreased the probability of a positive screening for depression (−9.15 percentage points; 95% confidence interval, −16.70 to −1.60; P=0.02), increased the use of many preventive services, and nearly eliminated catastrophic out-of-pocket medical expenditures.”

In laymen’s terms, Medicaid had no significant effect on actual measurable medical conditions, but it did “nearly eliminate catastrophic out-of-pocket medical expenditures.”

In this year alone, the Obama Administration plans to spend $267 billion on Medicaid alone rising to $529 billion by 2023.

Think about that, this year alone more than a quarter of a trillion dollars is being spent on a program that doesn’t significantly improve measurable health outcomes for its recipients, but facts be damned, when it comes to other people’s money, it is more about feeling good about our actions rather than whether they achieve the desired impact.

The news on Head Start is no better for those who believe that government can solve all ills.

A program started in 1965, Head Start has been incrementally expanded over the years and now it has become a year-round preschool and day care service for children between the ages of 3 to 5.

The problem with Head Start is that in spite of all its noble intentions of giving underprivileged children a better chance to succeed in school, it doesn’t work.

Currently costing taxpayers $8 billion a year, in 1998 Congress that the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services conduct a study of the efficacy of Head Start program.  The little reported study by the Office of Planning, Research and Evaluation within HHS’ Administration of Children and Families entitled ‘Third Grade Follow-Up to the Head Start Impact Study Final Report’ was released in October 2012.

It is no wonder it has largely been ignored with that enervating title.  But the reports results should not be ignored.  In fact the study revealed that Head Start:

    “…had few impacts on children in kindergarten through 3rd grade” versus those who had not been enrolled. Why? “[E]arly effects rapidly dissipated in elementary school, with only a single impact remaining at the end of 3rd grade for children in each age cohort.”

That’s right, the early effects of Head Start went away as the children matriculated through elementary school, with virtually all impact gone by the third grade.

Just another $8 billion a year spent on a social science experiment that has proven to be a complete bust, except in developing a large constituency of government workers dependent upon the programs.

At a time when our nation faces a real budget crisis, these two studies cry out for Members of Congress to conduct real evaluations of which of these feel good social programs are accomplishing their missions and which are just being sustained due to a loud group of advocates who have become dependent upon the government dollars regardless of whether they are accomplishing anything.

The Medicaid question becomes all the more important as states continue to grapple with whether to significantly increase the numbers of people who are eligible for the program.

Given the objective results available, those states which chose not to participate in the program have been proven right – saving taxpayers millions of dollars by just saying no to the program.

Now Congress has the responsibility to re-evaluate every assumption about the federal government’s involvement in both health care and education.  A fresh start about what the appropriate role of the federal government is in both areas underpinned by a knowledge that trillions of dollars have been wasted pursuing a failed liberal ideal.

As a first step, they should rip the failed programs out by the roots and take a giant step toward saving our nation from certain financial ruin.

Who knows, maybe Head Start and Medicaid will become the symbols of do-gooder government gone awry, and be held up for generations as the counterpoint to the next feel good government expansion schemes?

One can only hope so.

SOURCE

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Huge puzzle: Gun crime has plunged, but nobody knows why

The answer to the puzzle is right before their blind Leftist eyes.  They even mention "surging incarceration rates" but cannot see that if more of the bad guys are in jail, crime rates MUST drop.  But Leftists heart bad guys so we can't blame much on them.  It's "poverty", don't you know?

Gun crime has plunged in the United States since its peak in the middle of the 1990s, including gun killings, assaults, robberies and other crimes, two new studies of government data show.

Yet few Americans are aware of the dramatic drop, and more than half believe gun crime has risen, according to a newly released survey by the Pew Research Center.

In less than two decades, the gun murder rate has been nearly cut in half. Other gun crimes fell even more sharply, paralleling a broader drop in violent crimes committed with or without guns. Violent crime dropped steeply during the 1990s and has fallen less dramatically since the turn of the millennium.

The number of gun killings dropped 39% between 1993 and 2011, the Bureau of Justice Statistics reported in a separate report released Tuesday. Gun crimes that weren’t fatal fell by 69%. However, guns still remain the most common murder weapon in the United States, the report noted. Between 1993 and 2011, more than two out of three murders in the U.S. were carried out with guns, the Bureau of Justice Statistics found.

The bureau also looked into non-fatal violent crimes. Few victims of such crimes -- less than 1% -- reported using a firearm to defend themselves.

Despite the remarkable drop in gun crime, only 12% of Americans surveyed said gun crime had declined compared with two decades ago, according to Pew, which surveyed  more than 900 adults this spring. Twenty-six percent said it had stayed the same, and 56% thought it had increased.

It’s unclear whether media coverage is driving the misconception that such violence is up. The mass shootings in Newtown, Conn., and Aurora, Colo., were among the news stories most closely watched by Americans last year, Pew found. Crime has also been a growing focus for national newscasts and morning network shows in the past five years but has become less common on local television news.

“It’s hard to know what’s going on there,” said D’Vera Cohn, senior writer at the Pew Research Center. Women, people of color and the elderly were more likely to believe that gun crime was up than men, younger adults or white people. The center plans to examine crime issues more closely later this year.

Though violence has dropped, the United States still has a higher murder rate than most other developed countries, though not the highest in the world, the Pew study noted. A Swiss research group, the Small Arms Survey, says that the U.S. has more guns per capita than any other country.

Experts debate why overall crime has fallen, attributing the drop to all manner of causes, such as the withering of the crack cocaine market and surging incarceration rates.

The victims of gun killings are overwhelmingly male and disproportionately black.

SOURCE

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For more blog postings from me, see  TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, GREENIE WATCH,  POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC,  AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, IMMIGRATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, EYE ON BRITAIN 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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Economist: Say Goodbye To Your Life Savings

A record breaking stock market is distorting a frightening reality:  The U.S. is being eaten alive by a horrific cancer that will ultimately destroy the economy and impoverish the vast majority of its citizens.

That's according to Peter Schiff, the best-selling author and CEO of Euro Pacific Capital, who delivered his harsh warning to investors in a recent interview on Fox Business.

"I think we are heading for a worse economic crisis than we had in 2007," Schiff said.  "You're going to have a collapse in the dollar...a huge spike in interest rates... and our whole economy, which is built on the foundation of cheap money, is going to topple when you pull the rug out from under it."

Schiff says that, despite "phony" signs of an economic recovery, the cancer destroying America stems from a lethal concoction of our $16 trillion federal debt and the Fed's never ending money printing.

Currently, Bernanke and company is buying $1 trillion of Treasury and mortgage bonds a year. That's about $85 billion per month against a budget deficit that is about the same level.

According to Schiff, these numbers are unsustainable. And the Fed has no credible "exit strategy."

Eventually interest rates will rise... and when they do, Schiff says, stocks will tank and bonds dip to nothing. Massive new tax hikes will be imposed and programs and entitlements will be cut to the bone.

 "The crisis is imminent," Schiff said.  "I don't think Obama is going to finish his second term without the bottom dropping out. And stock market investors are oblivious to the problems."

 "We're broke, Schiff added.  "We owe trillions. Look at our budget deficit; look at the debt to GDP ratio, the unfunded liabilities. If we were in the Eurozone, they would kick us out."

Schiff points out that the market gains experienced recently, with the Dow first topping 14,000 on its way to setting record highs, are giving investors a false sense of security.

"It's not that the stock market is gaining value... it's that our money is losing value. And so if you have a debased currency... a devalued currency, the price of everything goes up. Stocks are no exception," he said.

"The Fed knows that the U.S. economy is not recovering," he noted. "It simply is being kept from collapse by artificially low interest rates and quantitative easing. As that support goes, the economy will implode."

A noted economist, Schiff has been a fierce critic of the Fed and its policies for years. And his warnings have proven to be prophetic.

In August 2006, when the Dow was hitting new highs nearly every day, Schiff said in an interview: "The United States is like the Titanic, and I'm here with the lifeboat trying to get people to leave the ship... I see a real financial crisis coming for the United States."

Just over a year later, the meltdown that became the Great Recession began, just as Schiff predicted.

He also predicted the subprime mortgage bubble burst, nearly a year before the real estate market fully crashed.

Schiff estimates this "cancer" could consume a trillion dollars from consumers this year.

"Today we're the world's greatest debtor nation. Companies, homeowners and banks are so highly leveraged, rising interest rates will be devastating."

According to polls, the average American is indeed sensing danger. A recent survey found that 61% of Americans believe a catastrophe is looming - yet only 15% feel prepared for such a deeply troubling event.

SOURCE

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“Austerity” in Britain

"What austerity?" asks the super-sound UK economic commentator Liam Halligan in the Telegraph.  GDP is down to be sure (6.2% below its pre-crisis peak), and we members of the public are indeed tightening our belts. Not so government. It's belt-tightening amounts to just 2.7% "cuts" over six years. That's after previous Chancellor/PM Gordon Brown expanded government spending by half, from 35% to 50% of GDP. Some "austerity" from our politicians!

The present government aimed to reduce its annual deficit to zero by 2015. In the wake of disappointing growth figures, that has now been expanded to 2018. Will it even be achieved? Most of the "cuts" were end-loaded, so the real complaints haven't even started yet.

Meanwhile, annual borrowing continues to add to the national debt. Even if that 2018 balanced-budget target is achieved, says Halligan, it still means that the national debt in 2017/18, at around £1.7 trillion, will be three times that in 2008. And the interest payments on that expanded debt all have to be met. It is money we could have used on something more useful, had we not been so profligate in the boom years.

Only virtual money-printing on a record scale has saved the government. How nice it is to have the monopoly on money, so you can just mint it to pay off your debts. But then your money loses its value, and lenders stop bailing you out again because they know they will be conned.

Investment, meanwhile, the one thing that might pull the UK out of its doldrums, has dried up. Private sector investment was just 1.2% of GDP in 2012, down from 5.8% in 2007. Businesses are sitting on cash, or paying off their debts, rather than risking money on an uncertain future.

As for the government, its "cuts" have fallen mostly on capital expenditure, nearly halved from £47bn in 2008/09 to just £27bn in 2014/15. That is the easy way to reduce your overspending – you don't have to fire anyone, or raise taxes too much, you just let the potholes get a bit bigger. But it does not tackle government's bloated spending appetite, nor lay down capital for tomorrow.

And now the IMF are joining the pleas to go steady on "austerity". As I said: "What austerity?"

SOURCE

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Democrats go home!

Allergen producing plants aren’t the only things that can cause you grief and make your life a choking misery. There’s something else out there that can make your life miserable, cause you to feel bloated, tired, out of sorts. This allergen can destroy initiative and make you lazy and unmotivated. It robs you of the joy of achievement and the rewards of hard work. There are but a few places in this country where this weed hasn’t taken hold, and those places are threated. The noxious weed I’m talking about is Democrat big government liberalism.

So ... here’s what I’m driving at here. I live in Naples, Florida. Naples is a very successful smaller city ... or town, if you will. A year or so ago Naples scored the highest life expectancy for women, and was number two for men. The recession hit Naples, of course, but not nearly as hard as other areas of the country. There’s no state income tax in Florida, and in Collier County and Naples having to deal with a county or city employee, for a new license plate, for instance, is rarely unpleasant. Crime? Well some woman did attack a man at the beach with a swim noodle last year. Unemployment in the Naples area remained lower than the nation, home prices are recovering and the economy is vibrant.

So for the last 50 years people have been moving to Naples to escape the mess they caused by putting liberal Democrats in charge of their old hometowns. They’ve fled high taxes, poor schools, unionized work forces, crime, corruption and the economic malaise that comes packaged with most Democrat governments. No problem! That’s great! It’s called “voting with your feet.” Our country was founded by people fleeing an oppressive government for more liberty! It’s much the same thing as moving away from all those allergy-causing trees and shrubs to a new area where the air is cleaner and your teeth don’t itch.

Now my question: If you moved to Naples, or to Texas, or to a number of other low-tax regions not run by Democrats to improve your enjoyment of life, then can you please tell me just why in the hell you want to then turn around and put the very same species of politicians – liberal Democrats that chased you away from your old home – into office in your new home? Why would you plant those allergy-causing plants you moved to get away from in your new back yard? You move to an area where Republicans are and have been in control of the government for decades because you like what they’ve created, and you start voting for Democrats? Are you NUTS? Are old self-destructive habits that hard to break?

There was a little Naples rally in support of Hillary Clinton over the past weekend. Twenty people showed up. That’s 20 too many. What is your problem? Do you think it is people like Hillary Clinton that made our town the great place to live it is today?

Look at Colorado! That place used to actually make sense! Then people fleeing high-tax, highly-regulated California came there to take advantage of a lifestyle created by small-government Western conservatives, and now look what you have? Hickenlooper? Sounds like a disease, doesn’t it. Irrationalitis Democratus. Are you kidding me?

Our request is simple. If you love big government creating a dependent class of parasites and choking the life out of business, stay the hell where you are. You DID build that … so stay there and enjoy it! Self-reliant, liberty-loving Americans built something entirely different in Naples, in Texas and in other havens of rationality. If you want to move here, fine. But can you leave your noxious weeds behind please?

SOURCE

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The Left's Sick Fetish for Cop-Killing Radicals

By Michelle Malkin

There's a stomach-turning segment of the American population that sees surviving Boston bomber suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev as a romantic maverick. The New York Times mused about the accused jihadist's "Holden Caulfield-like adolescent alienation." Pop singer Amanda Palmer wrote a fan girl "Poem for Dzhokhar." An adoring "Free Jahar" movement thrives on social media.

Fringe, you say? Think again. The fetish for cop-killing fugitives and cop-hating radicals is a mainstay of Hollywood, academia, the liberal media and Democratic Party circles. It has persisted for decades. It reared its head on May Day with rock-hurling anarchists in Seattle and D.C. shouting "F**k the pigs" and kicking cops. And consider the exaltation of the woman just named to the FBI's Most Wanted Terrorist list, Joanne Chesimard.

On Thursday, the feds announced that they are doubling their reward for the capture of Chesimard (a.k.a. "Assata Shakur"). The former Black Panther and Black Liberation Army agitator has been a fugitive from justice for nearly 40 years and openly thumbs her nose at her victim's family while living in Cuba as a political asylee. Congressional Black Caucus members have stubbornly protested extradition efforts, invoking the poisonous race card and deifying Chesimard as a "political prisoner." Columbia University professor Marc Lamont Hill glorifies her as a "freedom fighter."

Just last week, rapper Common added an Assata Shakur tribute verse to Jay Z's recent "Open Letter" rap defending his wedding anniversary trip to Chesimard's sanctuary of Cuba. "The same way they say she was a shooter, Assata Shakur, they tried to execute her. We should free her like we should (convicted cop-killer) Mumia (Abu Jamal)," Common proclaims.

Chesimard/Shakur is the godmother of the late Tupac Shakur, a gangsta rapper whose genre spawned NWA's "F**k tha Police," Ice-T's "Cop Killer" and The Game's "911 is a Joke" ("I ought to shoot 51 officers for the 51 times that boy was shot in New York").

Mic check this: In 1973, Chesimard shot and killed New Jersey state trooper Werner Foerster execution-style during a traffic stop. The gunfight also left her brother-in-law, Black Liberation Army leader Zayd Malik Shakur, dead. At the time, the BLA had been tied to the murders of more than 10 police officers across the country. Chesimard, Zayd Shakur and another member were wanted for questioning in the murder of two of those cops when they were stopped.

Chesimard was convicted and sentenced to life in 1977, but escaped from prison two years later with help from violent left-wing accomplices. One of those thugs, Black Liberation Army killer Tyrone Rison, admitted to participating in a series of armored-car robberies, including a $250,000 heist in the Bronx on June 2, 1981, that left a Brink's guard dead. Rison also confessed to taking part in the planning of the Rockland County, N.Y., $1.6 million Brink's robbery by left-wing domestic terrorists on October 20, 1981. Police officers Waverly Brown and Edward O'Grady and Brink's guard Peter Paige were murdered during the siege.

Chesimard's brother, Jeral Wayne Williams (a.k.a. Mutulu Shakur), was the convicted ringleader of the group responsible for murdering those law enforcement officers; he also masterminded Chesimard's escape. His release is set for February 2016.

Celebrated left-wing heroine Kathy Boudin and her then-husband David Gilbert were convicted for their role in the bloody Rockland County robbery. Boudin and Company, as I reported in March, are the inspirations for Robert Redford's new movie love letter to the Weather Underground. Boudin now holds an adjunct professorship at Columbia University's School of Social Work, along with a scholar-in-residence post at New York University, as the New York Post reported in April. The adoptive parents of her son, Rhodes scholar and Yale legal fellow Chesa Boudin, are Weather Underground militants-turned-academics Bill Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn.

Susan Rosenberg, a violent "progressive" domestic terrorist who participated in bombings of the United States Capitol Building, three military installations and other sites during the 1980s, was a principal getaway coordinator for Chesimard, Shakur, Boudin, et al. After receiving a pardon from Bill Clinton, Rosenberg taught literature at John Jay College of Criminal Justice and was offered a teaching position at Hamilton College.

Blogger Bill Ardolino, whose father was a N.J. state trooper and classmate of murdered N.J. trooper Werner Foerster, recounted Chesimard's chilling lack of remorse: "After their capture, my father was part of the team assigned to guard the severely wounded Chesimard in the hospital. As the troopers stood outside of her room, she incessantly chanted, 'If I had some poison gas, I'd throw it on your white ass.' ... Today she walks free as a professor, counter-cultural heroine and published author reviewed by The New York Times: "A deftly written book ... a spellbinding tale."

From Free Assata to Free Mumia to Free Jahar, the left's police-bashing bloodlust is not just a sick joke. Their romanticizing of cold-blooded terrorism is a pathology. Twisted Dzhokhar Tsarnaev summed it up in three letters for his friends while still on the lam for committing a deadly terrorist attack, murdering a police officer and wounding another:

"LOL."

SOURCE

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For more blog postings from me, see  TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, GREENIE WATCH,  POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC,  AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, IMMIGRATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, EYE ON BRITAIN 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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A Spanish Leftist Speaks Out about the Leftist love affair with Fascism

A speech by Pilar Rahola from a couple of years back. Sadly, it is still completely topical.  Pilar comes from an anti-Fascist family, which means something in Spain

Why don't we see demonstrations against Islamic dictatorships in London, Paris, Barcelona?  Or demonstrations against the Burmese dictatorship?

Why aren't there demonstrations against the enslavement of millions of women who live without any legal protection?

Why aren't there demonstrations against the use of children as human bombs where there is conflict with Islam?

Why has there been no leadership in support of the victims of Islamic dictatorship in Sudan?

Why is there never any outrage against the acts of terrorism committed against Israel?

Why is there no outcry by the European left against Islamic fanaticism?

Why don't they defend Israel's right to exist?

Why confuse support of the Palestinian cause with the defense of Palestinian terrorism?

An finally, the million dollar question: Why is the left in Europe and around the world obsessed with the two most solid democracies, the United States and Israel, and not with the worst dictatorships on the planet? The two most solid democracies, who have suffered the bloodiest attacks of terrorism, and the left doesn't care.

And then, to the concept of freedom. In every pro Palestinian European forum I hear the left yelling with fervor: "We want freedom for the people!"

Not true. They are never concerned with freedom for the people of Syria or Yemen or Iran or Sudan, or other such nations. And they are never preoccupied when Hamas destroys freedom for the Palestinians. They are only concerned with using the concept of Palestinian freedom as a weapon against Israeli freedom. The resulting consequence of these ideological pathologies is the manipulation of the press.

The international press does major damage when reporting on the question of the Israeli-Palestinian issue. On this topic they don't inform, they propagandize.

When reporting about Israel the majority of journalists forget the reporter code of ethics. And so any Israeli act of self-defense becomes a massacre, and any confrontation, genocide. So many stupid things have been written about Israel that there aren't any accusations left to level against her.

At the same time, this press never discusses Syrian and Iranian interference in propagating violence against Israel; the indoctrination of children and the corruption of the Palestinians. And when reporting about victims, every Palestinian casualty is reported as tragedy and every Israeli victim is camouflaged, hidden or reported about with disdain.

And let me add on the topic of the Spanish left. Many are the examples that illustrate the anti-Americanism and anti-Israeli sentiments that define the Spanish left. For example, one of the leftist parties in Spain has just expelled one of its members for creating a pro-Israel website. I quote from the expulsion document: "Our friends are the people of Iran, Libya and Venezuela, oppressed by imperialism, and not a Nazi state like Israel."  [How can they be oppressed by imperialism?  They are completely independent states.  They are oppressed by their own Fascists -- JR]

Spain has suffered the worst terrorist attack in Europe and it is in the crosshairs of every Islamic terrorist organization. As I wrote before, they kill us with cell phone hooked to satellites connected to the Middle Ages. And yet the Spanish left is the most anti Israel in the world.

And then it says it is anti Israeli because of solidarity. This is the madness I want to denounce in this conference.

In conclusion, I am not Jewish. Ideologically I am left and by profession a journalist. Why am I not against Israel like my colleagues? Because as a non-Jew I have the historical responsibility to fight against Jewish hatred and currently against the hatred for their historic homeland, Israel. To fight against anti-Semitism is not the duty of the Jews; it is the duty of the non-Jews.

As a journalist it is my duty to search for the truth beyond prejudice, lies and manipulations. The truth about Israel is not told. As a person from the left who loves progress, I am obligated to defend liberty, culture, civic education for children, coexistence and the laws that the Tablets of the Covenant made into universal principles.  Principles that Islamic fundamentalism systematically destroys. That is to say that as a non-Jew, journalist and leftist I have a triple moral duty with Israel, because if Israel is destroyed, liberty, modernity and culture will be destroyed too.

The struggle of Israel, even if the world doesn't want to accept it, is the struggle of the world.

SOURCE

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Israel is Doing Remarkably Well, Economically and Strategically

By Barry Rubin

Israel's economic and strategic situation is surprisingly bright right now. That’s partly due to the government’s own economic restraint and strategic balancing act, partly due to a shift in Obama Administration policy, and partly due to the conflicts among Israel’s adversaries.

Let’s start with the economy. During 2012, Israel’s economy grew by 3.1 percent. While some years ago this would not be all that impressive it is amazing given the international economic recession. The debt burden actually fell from 79.4 percent of Gross Domestic Product to only 73.8 percent. As the debt of the United States and other countries zooms upwards, that’s impressive, too.

Israel’s credit rating also rose at a time when America’s was declining. Standard and Poor lifted the rating from A to A+. Two other rating systems, Moody’s and Fitch, also increased Israel’s rating.

Now not only is gas from Israel's offshore fields starting to flow but a new estimate is that the fields are bigger than expected previously.

And that’s not all. Unemployment fell from 8.5 percent in 2009 to either 6.8 to 6.9 percent (according to Israel’s bureau of statistics) or 6.3 percent (according to the CIA).

In terms of U.S.-Israel relations, the visit of President Barack Obama and Israel’s cooperation on Iran and on an attempted conciliation with Turkey brought quick rewards. For the first time, Israel will be allowed to purchase KC-135 aerial refueling planes, a type of equipment that could be most useful for attacking Iranian nuclear facilities among other things.

The same deal—which includes sales to Saudi Arabia and other Arab countries to make U.S. allies feel more secure vis-à-vis Iran—includes V-22 Osprey planes that can switch between helicopter and plane mode. Israel is the first foreign country to be allowed to purchase this system. It could be used for border patrols—a bigger problem given the decline in the stability along the Egyptian and Syrian borders—and troop transport.

Finally, there would be more advanced radars for Israeli planes and a new type of missile useful for knocking out enemy anti-aircraft sites, potentially useful against Iran among other targets. In addition, an Israeli company is now going to be making the wings for the advanced U.S. F-35 fighter planes.

The completion of the border fence with Egypt increases security in places where Palestinian and Egyptian Islamist groups are trying to attack. It also has reduced illegal civilian crossings to zero. Ironically, Israel has gotten control of its border while the U.S. government proclaims that task to be impossible for itself.

And of course there is the usual and widely varied progress on medical, agricultural, and hi-tech innovations.

That doesn't mean problems don't exist, including a budget deficit caused by some boosts in social spending (responding to protests in 2012) and unexpected defense spending to protect the border with Egypt or to handle the Iranian threat. But that deficit will be addressed, unlike in other countries.

The picture is even bright regarding U.S.-Israel relations, certainly compared to the previous four years. This point is highlighted by Wikileaks publication of a U.S. embassy dispatch of January 4, 2010, describing my article that day in the Jerusalem Post:

“[As far as Israel is concerned] what is important is that Obama and his entourage has learned two things. One of them is that bashing Israel is politically costly. American public opinion is very strongly pro-Israel. Congress is as friendly to Israel as ever. For an administration that is more conscious of its future reelection campaign than any previous one, holding onto Jewish voters and ensuring Jewish donations is very important….

“The other point is that the administration has seen that bashing Israel doesn't get it anywhere. For one thing, the current Israeli government won't give in easily and is very adept at protecting its country's interests. This administration has a great deal of trouble being tough with anyone. If in fact the Palestinians and Arabs were eager to make a deal and energetic about supporting other U.S. policies, the administration might well be tempted to press for an arrangement that largely ignored Israeli interests.

“But this is not the case. It is the Palestinians who refuse even to come to the negotiating table -- and that is unlikely to change quickly or easily. Arab states won't lift a finger to help the U.S. on Iran, Iraq, or Arab-Israeli issues. So why bother?”

I think this analysis really fits the events that came to fruition in March 2013 with Obama’s coming to Israel, signaling a change in U.S. policy.

Face it. The obsession with the “peace process” is misplaced and misleading. The big issue in the region is the struggle for power in the Arabic-speaking world, Turkey, and Iran between Islamists and non-Islamists. And, no, the Arab-Israeli conflict has very little to do with these issues. Those who don’t understand those points cannot possible comprehend the region. Secretary of State John Kerry may run around the region and talk about big plans for summit conferences. But nobody really expects anything to happen.

This is not, of course, to say that there aren’t problems. Yet what often seems to be the world’s most slandered and reviled country is doing quite well. Perhaps if Western states studied its policies rather than endlessly criticizing them they might gain from the experience.

SOURCE

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Warren Buffett sees 'brutal' damage for savers from central bank money printing

If you don't believe me, believe Mr. Buffett  -- JR

Veteran investor Warren Buffett has warned that savers and bondholders are suffering a "brutal" erosion of their money as the US Federal Reserve and other central banks force yields to historic lows.

"I feel sorry for people that have clung to fixed-dollar investments," he told investors at Berkshire Hathaway's annual meeting in Nebraska, an event akin to a rock concert.

Mr Buffett defended the emergency stimulus of Fed chairman Ben Bernanke, saying the "consequences would have been terrible" if the authorities had failed to act, but those nearing pension age have paid the price. Many are trapped in such assets through pension funds.

"Bernanke had tough choices to make, but he decided to step on the gas pedal, in terms of monetary policy, and he brought down rates to virtually unheard of levels, and kept them there. And he's still got his foot on the pedal and that really does hurt savers. It has made it extremely difficult for all kinds of people who live on fixed-income investments," he told CNBC.

Mr Buffett said those who parked their money in cash equivalents or short-term US Treasuries had missed the party over the last nine months as Wall Street rocketed to all-time highs. "It is brutal. I don't know what I would do if I were in that position," he said.

SOURCE

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Rear admiral won't back down from ‘Constitutional right’ to share faith

In the wake of last week’s shocking news that the Pentagon is threatening to punish those who share their religious beliefs with others, the courageous comments of a high ranking official in the U.S. Navy have largely gone unreported in the media.

At a National Day of Prayer event Thursday on Capitol Hill, as first reported by World Magazine, Rear Admiral William Lee, who described himself as “a man of deep abiding faith who happens to wear a uniform,” spoke out against the growing religious hostility in the military.

Lee recounted his decision to violate military rules preventing him from giving a Bible to a soldier who had attempted suicide, and pledged not to back down from “my right under the Constitution to tell a young man that there is hope.”

In speaking of the record number of military suicides, Lee shared the story of the 24-year-old soldier who had survived a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head. He told the gathering that his heart said to give the soldier a Bible, even though he knew the rules said he should send the man to a chaplain.

“The lawyers tell me that if I do that, I’m crossing the line,” Lee said. “I’m so glad I’ve crossed that line so many times.”

His comments were in response to the appointment of anti-Christian Mikey Weinstein as a Pentagon consultant to develop new policies on religious tolerance. Weinstein recently wrote of Christians in The Huffington Post:

"Today, we face incredibly well-funded gangs of fundamentalist Christian monsters who terrorize their fellow Americans by forcing their weaponized and twisted version of Christianity upon their helpless subordinates in our nation’s armed forces."

SOURCE

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There once was some balance in Hollywood



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, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC,  AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, IMMIGRATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, EYE ON BRITAIN 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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Far Right?

The article below describes the Hungarian Jobbik party as "Far Right" and Jobbik themselves call themselves conservatives.  But they reject globalised capitalism and  feature a radical critique of existing political institutions. They are Greenies and want Hungary to be ruled by  "considerations of cooperation, equality, and solidarity, rather than a rule of acquisition".   How conservative is that?  They clearly have a lot in common with the socialist Hitler but not much with real conservatives.  They speak for themselves here

As the World Jewish Congress opens in Budapest amid a rise in anti-Semitism in Hungary, Colin Freeman visits the town of Tiszavasvári, twinned with Iran and the stronghold of the far-Right Jobbik party.

As the self-declared "capital" of the ultra-nationalist Jobbik Party, the town of Tiszavasvári prides itself on being a showcase for how the whole of Hungary might one day look.

Since winning control of Tiszavasvári's local council three years ago on a pledge to fight "Gipsy crime", the party has been on a vigorous clean-up campaign, banning prostitution, tidying the streets, and keeping a watchful eye on the shabby Roma districts at the edge of town. It even swore in its own Jobbik "security force" to work alongside the police, only for the uniformed militia, which drew comparisons with Hitler's brown-shirts, to be banned by Hungary's national government.

Yet Gipsies are not the only bogeyman that Jobbik has in its sights, as a sign on the well-trimmed green opposite the Communist-era mayoralty building suggests. Written in both Hungarian and Persian, it proudly announces that Tiszavasvári is twinned with Ardabil, a town in the rugged mountains of north-west Iran.

On the face of it, there is no obvious reason why a drab rustbelt town in Hungary's former mining area should seek links to a city in a hardline Islamic Republic 2,000 miles away. But this is no ordinary cultural exchange programme, and friendship has very little to do with it. Instead, the real purpose of Jobbik's links to Iran is to show their mutual loathing of the Jewish state of Israel, which the Iranian president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, notoriously declared should be "wiped from the pages of history".

"The Persian people and their leaders are considered pariahs in the eyes of the West, which serves Israeli interests," said Marton Gyongyosi, a Jobbik MP and its leading foreign policy voice. "This is why we have solidarity with the peaceful nation of Iran and turn to her with an open heart."

In many other countries in Europe, such a scheme might be dismissed as just petty town hall posturing, a Far right version of the "Loony Left" gesture politics practised in British town halls in the 1980s. But it is particularly sensitive in Hungarian towns like Tiszavasvári, where anti-semitism has seen Jews wiped from the pages of history once before.

More HERE

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Some perspective



More here

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You can't rely on the other guy being careful



The motorbike was traveling at approximately 85 mph.  The car  driver was talking on a cell phone when she pulled out from a side street, apparently not seeing the motorcycle. The car had two passengers and the bike rider was found INSIDE the car with them.  All three died instantly.

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The Elite Media Hates You

It doesn’t matter whether you’re on the far left, far right or somewhere in the middle, there is absolutely no denying the rise of the tea party has altered America’s political landscape. And the elite media is making clear, in no uncertain terms, they despise this type of change.

Last week, Senator Heidi Heitkamp (D-ND) voted against the Schumer-Toomey gun bill because her constituents were opposed to the bill. On MSNBC’s Morning Joe, former lawmaker Joe Scarborough and his sidekick Mika Brzezinski lit into her:

    MIKA: She is defending her vote saying her office was flooded with calls from constituents who opposed background checks by a 7-1 ratio.

    JOE: You can’t handle that?

The implication is that Heitkamp, who is not conservative, is supposed to ignore the citizens of her state because the elite media in New York City say the “overwhelming majority of people want to go the other way.”

In fact, a Pew Research-Washington Post poll found 47 percent of those closely following the gun debate were “happy” or “relieved” the bill failed. It would be logical to conclude folks in North Dakota, the state with the 8th highest gun ownership in the country, were even more relieved.

The cascade of righteous indignation continued, though:

    JOE: Heidi Heitkamp wants to be a United States Senator but she is not tough enough to handle 4% of her constituents calling into her office a lot. She’s not even taking the phone calls!

    MIKA: That’s what they do.

    JOE: … This is one of the saddest most pathetic votes I think I’ve ever seen in Washington, DC. What Heidi Heitkamp has done. Cowarding [sic] in the corner because 4% maybe 5% of the people in her state were making phone calls that her staff had to answer.

    MIKA: What about her own opinion? Does she have one?

The coastal elites regularly dismiss people in fly over country. The difference with this tantrum is that the elites are dismissing a fundamental constitutional right. The 1st Amendment guarantees citizens the right “to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”

If it seems as though they’re advocating for a callous disregard of their constituents, you’re right:

    JOE: They are really vocal. Oh, my gosh. When she has to walk past her staff and saying a lot people are calling. I’ve done that. They are calling! I said, “that’s great. I’ll be back.”

When you consider this for standard operating procedure for the political and media elites, it should come as no surprise the vast majority of Americans are dissatisfied with Washington and the media.

It goes beyond just demeaning commentary, though.

The Washington Post reported this weekend’s White House Correspondents’ Association Dinner “will raise about $150,000 for journalism scholarships, according to the WHCA, a nonprofit group.” The piece then went on to report “some media organizations will drop as much as $200,000 each to entertain an elite list of guests” at after parties.

Ultimately, the money raised for scholarships is “small change.” The Post concludes “The real targets are a few hundred elite and influential guests. The parties help news organizations court would-be advertisers and reward existing ones by putting them in proximity to power and the Hollywood figures who will be transported and pampered at the media’s expense this weekend.”

Of all people, former NBC anchor Tom Brokaw has the self-awareness to realize this type of display is just “another separation between what [journalists are] supposed to be doing and what the people expect us to be doing.”

Whether talking heads are dismissing the beliefs and opinions of one segment of the country or engaging in a schmooze-a-palooza with another, there is no doubt a massive disconnect exists between the elites and the rest of America. And politicians, elected by a ridiculed constituency, should remember who they represent.

SOURCE

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America’s Most Feared Economist

Ann Coulter

You can tell the conservatives liberals fear most because they start being automatically referred to as "discredited." Ask Sen. Ted Cruz. But no one is called "discredited" by liberals more often than the inestimable economist John Lott, author of the groundbreaking book More Guns, Less Crime: Understanding Crime and Gun Control Laws .

Lott's economic analysis of the effect of concealed-carry laws on violent crime is the most thoroughly vetted study in the history of economics, perhaps in the history of the world.

Some nut Dutch professor produces dozens of gag studies purportedly finding that thinking about red meat makes people selfish and that litter leads to racism -- and no one bothers to see if he even administered questionnaires before drawing these grand conclusions about humanity.

But Lott's decades-long studies of concealed-carry laws have been probed, poked and re-examined dozens of times. (Most of all by Lott himself, who has continuously re-run the numbers controlling for thousands of factors.)

Tellingly, Lott immediately makes all his underlying data and computer analyses available to critics -- unlike, say, the critics. He has sent his data and work to 120 researchers around the world. By now, there have been 29 peer-reviewed studies of Lott's work on the effect of concealed-carry laws.

Eighteen confirm Lott's results, showing a statistically significant reduction in crime after concealed-carry laws are enacted. Ten show no harm, but no significant reduction in crime. Only one peer-reviewed study even purported to show any negative effect: a temporary increase in aggravated assaults. Then it turned out this was based on a flawed analysis by a liberal activist professor: John Donohue, whose name keeps popping up in all fake studies purporting to debunk Lott.

In 1997, a computer crash led to the loss of Lott's underlying data. Fortunately, he had previously sent this data to his critics -- professors Dan Black, Dan Nagin and Jens Ludwig. When Lott asked if they would mind returning it to him to restore his files, they refused. (One former critic, Carlisle Moody, conducted his own analysis of Lott's data and became a believer. He has since co-authored papers with Lott.)

Unable to produce a single peer-reviewed study to discredit Lott's conclusions, while dozens of studies keep confirming them, liberals have turned to their preferred method of simply sneering at Lott and neurotically attaching "discredited" to his name. No actual discrediting ever takes place. But liberals think as long as they smirk enough, their work is done.

Average readers hear that Lott has been "discredited" and assume that there must have been some debate they didn't see. To the contrary, the leading source for the claim that Lott's research doesn't hold up, left-wing zealot Donohue, has been scheduled to debate Lott, one-on-one, at the University of Chicago twice back in 2005. Both times, Donohue canceled at the last minute.

Donohue accuses Lott of libel for pointing this out. Suggestion for Mr. Donohue: Instead of writing columns insisting you've been libeled, wouldn't it be better just to agree to a debate? It's been eight years!

Scratch any claim that Lott's research has been "debunked" and you will find Donohue, his co-author and plagiarist Ian Ayres, or one of the three "scholars" mentioned above -- the ones so committed to a search for the truth that they refused to return Lott's data to him. (Imagine the consequences if Lott had been forced to admit to plagiarism, as Ayres has.)

Donohue's previous oeuvre includes the racist claim that the crime rate declined in the 1990s as a result of abortion being legalized in the '70s. (Nearly 40 percent of the abortions since the 1973 case of Roe v. Wade were of black children.)

This study was discredited (not "discredited") by many economists, including two at the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston, who pointed out that Donohue's study made critical mistakes, such as failing to control for variables such as the crack cocaine epidemic. When the Reserve economists reran Donohue's study without his glaring mistakes, they found that there was "no evidence in (Donohue's) own data" for an abortion-crime link.

Curiously, the failure to account for the crack epidemic is one of Donohue's complaints with Lott's study. It worked so well against his own research he thought he'd try it against Lott. The difference is: Lott has, in fact, accounted for the crack epidemic, over and over again, in multiple regressions, all set forth in his book.

Donohue and plagiarist Ayres took a nasty swipe at Lott in the Stanford Law Review so insane that the editors of the Review -- Donohue's own students -- felt compelled to issue a subsequent "clarification" saying: "Ayres and Donohue's Reply piece is incorrect, unfortunate, and unwarranted."

When you have to be corrected on your basic anti-gun facts by an ABC correspondent -- as Donohue was by "Nightline" correspondent John Donvan in a 2008 televised panel discussion -- you might be a few shakes away from a disinterested scholar.

But the easily-fooled New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof has repeatedly called Lott "discredited," based on a 2003 a non-peer-reviewed law review article by charlatans Donohue and Ayres. In a 2011 column, for example, Kristof dismissed Lott's book, "More Guns, Less Crime," with the bald assertion that "many studies have now debunked that finding."

The details of the chicanery of Donohue, plagiarist Ayres, as well as all of Lott's other critics, are dealt with point by point in the third edition of Lott's More Guns, Less Crime  There, and in a number of published articles by Lott and others , you can see how his critics cherry-picked the data, made basic statistical errors, tried every regression analysis imaginable to get the results they want and lied about Lott's work (such as Donohue's claim that he neglected to account for the crack epidemic).

Suffice it to say that of the 177 separate analyses run by all these critics, only seven show a statistically significant increase in crime after the passage of concealed-carry laws, while 90 of their own results show a statistically significant drop in crime -- and 80 show no difference.

"Discredited" in liberal lingo means, "Ignore this study; it didn't come out well for us."

SOURCE

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For more blog postings from me, see  TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, GREENIE WATCH,  POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC,  AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, IMMIGRATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, EYE ON BRITAIN 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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Reality Perpetually At Odds With Liberal Agenda

by CHRISTOPHER ADAMO

If any American still doubts that liberal ideology is built entirely upon a foundation of lies and fraud, the news of the past week should put the notion completely to rest. Major events, and in more specifically the disjointed and prejudicial manner in which those events have been covered, stand as proof that in the eyes of the liberal politicians and their media parakeets, "reporting" is not a matter of informing the people, but is instead an opportunity to indoctrinate them with a decidedly leftist worldview. Unfortunately for the left, when the facts become known, their empty fabrication quickly implodes.

Foremost in the minds of Americans was the April 15 terrorist bombing of the Boston Marathon. People hoping to enjoy a pleasurable outdoor spring event instead experienced unimaginable carnage and death. The nation is rightfully angered by the attacks, but it should also be outraged by the manner in which members of the press, ostensibly acting as guardians of an open and informed society, were busily and shamelessly striving to exploit the horrific event to the benefit of the liberal/Democrat agenda.

Among the most deplorable examples of this behavior was the column by David Sirota at Salon.com, entitled "Let's Hope the Boston Marathon Bomber is a White American." From the first moments after news of the bombing broke, liberals have been struggling to warp and twist the disaster into an occurrence that somehow validates their version of what America and the world should be. However, none was so brazen and loathsome in their attempts to recast the actual occurrence according to the leftist belief system as Sirota. Yet in a perverse sense, by displaying his unvarnished arrogance and detachment from reality, he ultimately did Real America an enormous favor.

Sirota lamented that unless the perpetrator turned out to be one of those villains from the ranks of grassroots conservatives, the resultant bad publicity would undermine all of the great and wonderful changes the left has planned for America. In essence, he feared that the facts would once again prove to be at odds with the utopian fantasy to which he and other leftists vainly cling. And of course when the identities and motivation of the perpetrators became known, his fears proved to be absolutely well founded.

As was fully predictable among thinking Americans, the villains of the Boston Marathon bombing turned out to be a couple of stridently anti-American Muslims. Now, those in the "mainstream" (read: liberal) media and their counterparts on Capitol Hill are backtracking and tap-dancing away from the event and its real connotations, since once again the underlying circumstances that led to murder and mayhem in Boston flatly refute the liberal belief system while reinforcing the principles and concerns of the American Heartland.

The reality of events in Massachusetts likewise came crashing down on MSNBC host Chris Matthews who, in a mindless rant that was typically devoid of facts, attempted to associate the mayhem in Boston with thinking of those on "the far right." In retrospect, it is much more accurate to assert that by such comments from Matthews (and with the assent of his like-minded cronies) it is the American left which proves to be the biggest enabler of the terrorists.

Absurd speculations offered by media liberals, frantically seeking to establish some oblique connection between the bombings and anything conservative, indeed proved to be flatly wrong. More importantly, this has invariably been the case each time an assault of this nature takes place. Nevertheless, with each ensuing episode, leftist ideologues obsessively cling to the hope that perhaps this time, the cards will fall in their favor and the venom they regularly spew against traditional America will finally be justified. Of course this is never the case, but it is hardly a coincidence or matter of mere bad luck for well intentioned liberals. Instead, it is part of a growing body of proof that the entire liberal philosophy is rotten to the core and simply cannot be advanced on its own merits. Thus, it must be shrouded in deception and pretense.

So, rather than conceding the perils of a burgeoning Islamist movement based in the Middle East and dangerously encroaching on all of Western Civilization, prominent liberals continue to focus on the ostensible faults of our country as the real culprit in any ongoing hostility among cultures. Unwilling to "profile" radical Muslims and the precepts of Islam that motivate and drive them, America's own liberal political and media establishment is entirely willing to essentially "profile" all of the good people of this country and lay the blame at their feet for their incompatibility with the Islamists.

In the wake of the September 11, 2012 Al Qaeda attacks on the American consulate in Benghazi Libya, in which Ambassador Chris Stevens and four other Americans were brutally tortured and murdered, the entire response of the Obama Administration was fabricated around the premise that an obscure anti-Muslim video on YouTube had fomented the anger of the attackers. Eventually, when pressed by members of a Senate Committee investigating the incident, then Secretary of State Hillary Clinton disparaged legitimate concerns of Senators with her infamous "What difference does it make?" evasion. During the interim, Barack Obama pandered and groveled in a speech at the United Nations, reaffirming the Administration's phony excuse of the YouTube video as the catalyst for the murderous attacks by asserting that "the future does not belong to those who slander the prophet of Islam."

Unfortunately for liberal dreamers, the determining factors behind the deaths in Benghazi strongly align with the real circumstances underlying the deaths in Boston, as well as those of eleven years ago in New York City, Washington D.C. and western Pennsylvania. Barack Obama's strategy of "peace through weakness" has been no more successful or founded on truth than the entire "green energy" debacle, the economic "stimulus," or the bogusly named "Affordable Healthcare and Patient Protection Act.

Conversely, fanatical and malicious liberal attempts to discredit grassroots conservatives and the "Tea Party" as dangerous domestic subversives have proven to be without merit. Their contempt is no more likely to undermine that organization than could all of the liberal adulation give credence to the debased and malignant "Occupy" movement.

In the wake of the Boston Marathon bombings, liberals find themselves at a precarious crossroads. The nation might be on the verge of awakening from its "politically correct" stupor and starting to recognize the threats facing it, along with those who willingly seek to keep it ignorant and therefore vulnerable to those threats. The prospect of an America that can discern who is with it and who is against it would constitute the worst imaginable nightmare to liberals. It is no wonder they are so obsessive in their effort to prevent this from happening.

SOURCE

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Liberal Suffering and Confusion

Walter E. Williams

The liberal world vision and reality are often at variance, for example, with equal pay for equal work. I've often watched "Lockup," a show that features California supermax prisons, including Pelican Bay and Corcoran. Often, a recalcitrant prisoner must be extracted from his cell through brute force. I've never seen female guards remove a prisoner. If they are part of the process at all, it's to videotape the extraction for legal purposes. It's my bet that female guards receive the same salaries as male guards while not having to risk injury.

Along the same lines, women on aircraft carriers earn as much as their male counterparts, but I have yet to see women hefting a hernia bar to attach a 500- or 1,000-pound bomb to a fighter jet wing. All of this suggests that liberals are for equal pay for unequal work. Or could it be sex discrimination whereby equally qualified women are denied the opportunity to extract beastly inmates from their cells and load heavy bombs on fighter planes?

Here's another bit of liberal confusion. Liberals deny that raising labor cost through minimum wages reduces incentives to hire. But if you asked a liberal for advice on how to stop rich people from shirking their tax obligations, they'd say raise the penalty. Ask low-information Harvard University doctors what should be done to stem gun violence and they answer that government should institute "a new, substantial national tax on all firearms and ammunition." Ask Illinois' Cook County Board of Commissioners President Toni Preckwinkle how to reduce purchases of bullets and guns. She'd say levy a nickel tax on each bullet and a $25 tax on each gun.

Liberals demonstrate they understand the law of demand -- that raising the cost of something lessens the amount taken -- but they deny that it applies to labor. That's as ludicrous as suggesting that the law of gravity applies to everything in the universe except cute creatures, such as pandas and puppies.

Liberals love political correctness that conceals information. For example, how does one know whether the "chair" of a board of directors or the chair of a city council is a man or woman? This issue arose during my (1995-2001) chairmanship of George Mason University's distinguished economics department. At a chairman's meeting or gathering, I was referred to as department chair. I told the speaker that I am a chairman and that I have empirical evidence as proof. Needless to say, it didn't go over well, but academics don't like the terms chairwoman or chairperson, either, but puzzlingly, God forbid that people refer to their idol as Chair Mao instead of Chairman Mao.

How liberals identify black people must be confusing to whites. Having been around for 77 years, I have been through a number of names. Among the more polite ones are colored, Negro, Afro-American, black and, more recently, African-American. Among those names, African-American is probably the most unintelligent.

Let's look at it. To identify their races, suppose I told you that I had a European-American friend, a South America-American friend and a North America-American friend. You'd probably say, "Williams, that's stupid. Europe, South America and North America are continents and home to different races, ethnicities and nationalities." You might suggest that my friend is a German-American instead of European-American. My friend from Brazil is a Brazilian-American rather than a South America-American, and my friend from Canada is a Canadian-American instead of a North America-American. So wouldn't the same apply to people whose heritage lies on the African continent?

For example, instead of claiming that President Barack Obama is the first African-American president, he's the first partially Kenyan-American president. Obama is lucky; he knows his national heritage. The closest thing to a national identity for most black Americans is some country along Africa's Gold Coast. Adding to the confusion, what would you call a white American of Afrikaner or Egyptian descent? Is he an African-American?

Liberals suffer confusion and cognitive dissonance because the rest of us don't help explain things to them.

SOURCE

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President Emptyhead

It has happened again! Our gaffe-prone president has filed another blunder on his presidential record. At the dedication of George W. Bush's presidential library he invoked history with his usual mastery of detail. He placed President John F. Kennedy in Air Force One, "On the flight back from Russia, after negotiating with Nikita Khrushchev at the height of the Cold War."

Actually the flight was returning from Vienna, not "Russia," and not much "negotiating" had been done. Truth be known, it was one of the lowest points in JFK's presidency. As Kennedy himself recalled, "He [Khrushchev] treated me like a little boy." And more: "Worst thing in my life. He savaged me," said our 35th president. Well, at least President Obama did not claim anyone at the Kennedy-Khrushchev summit spoke "Austrian." That was the language our learned president attributed to the citizens of Vienna back on April 6, 2009. No philologist has ever heard of it.

As I have noted before, President Barack Obama will be remembered as America's gaffable president. He nicely complements Joe Biden, America's gaffable vice president. Remember back at inauguration time when Joe addressed the Iowa State Society Inauguration Ball with "I'm proud to be president of the United States." By now there have been scores of happy blunders committed by both of these public servants.

I am relatively certain that I am the first to say this in a public forum: Barack Obama and Joe Biden are the most gaffe-prone leaders of a presidential administration in modern times. I cannot think of any conceivable groups of presidents and vice presidents in recent history who could surpass these two in cloddishness -- not Warren G. Harding and Jimmy Carter, not Dan Quayle and Al Gore, not Laurel and Hardy. No, strike that last pair. They never ran for high office. Yet, were they today upright and with all their vital organs functioning, they might have presented a formidable duo, particularly if one, say, Laurel could have presented himself as suffering a trendy modern affliction, say gender ambiguity, and the other, that would be the portly Hardy, could have claimed an eating disorder.

That seems to be how Obama and Biden got reelected. They had a miserable record, most notably in economics, but they segmented the population. They captured the vote of the unmarried women, who are not very happy. They won the vote of the young people, who will be paying for my entitlements for years to come and the entitlements of the poor and the not so poor. Most minorities voted for them. These voters, along with the Democratic majority -- often referred to in this column as the moron vote -- beat a Republican ticket with the demonstrated skill to right the economy and to guide the country through tricky foreign policy challenges, challenges that Obama-Biden have yet to meet.

So our gaffable president and vice president will flounder along for the rest of their terms, and Americans will hope and pray for the best.

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Congresscritters exempting themselves from Obamacare

“Congressional leaders in both parties,” reports Politico, “are engaged in high-level, confidential talks about exempting lawmakers and Capitol Hill aides from the insurance exchanges they are mandated to join as part of President Barack Obama’s health care overhaul, sources in both parties said.”

The article provides a lot of back and forth commentary from insiders who are clearly worried about political fallout from exempting Congress and staffers from Obamacare.

But wait: Not so, says Klein in his posted titled No, Congress isn’t trying to exempt itself from Obamacare.

Klein then goes on to explain that “they-meant-to-do-it-even-though-they-didn’t-mean-to-do-it”, in extempting themseleves from Obamacare and the reporters from Politico are either: 1) too dumb to know it, or 2) too dishonest to care.

“If this sounds unbelievable,” Klein writes, saying the Politico reporters are either lying or stupid, “it’s because it is. There’s no effort to ‘exempt’ Congress from Obamacare. No matter how this shakes out, Congress will have to follow the law, just like everyone else does.”

That’s how it always works for Congress, right? No matter what Congress does, they just follow the law… nothing to see here folks.  You see, when you get to write the laws, exempting yourself from a law is the same thing as following the law, isn’t it, Ezra?

I find it absolutely hilarious that Congress, Ezra Klein and the White House are busy- just like the rest of us are right now- trying to figure out what the hell the Obamacare law means for real people, who have real jobs, who have to pay real premiums and have real health issues.

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For more blog postings from me, see  TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, GREENIE WATCH,  POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC,  AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, IMMIGRATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, EYE ON BRITAIN 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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How I discovered the hidden side of history

1981: I was looking through some old books that somehow ended up at my parents’ house. Among them, I found a set of history books from the 1930s. With an innate interest in the topic, I began reading them, and was absolutely shocked by what I found.

The last book of the series covered what were then modern times, and to my horror, I found lavish praise for – of all people – Benito Mussolini.

These were American books, by the way, beautifully produced by a respected publisher. And there, in authoritative tones, was the story of the great Mussolini, the savior of Italy. Given that I was taught precisely the opposite, a mere 30-odd years later, you can imagine my surprise.

Just to establish my point, here are a few quotes from that time about Mussolini:

*    What a man! I have lost my heart!     - Winston Churchill

*    The greatest genius of the modern age.     - Thomas Edison

*    I am much interested and deeply impressed by what he has accomplished and by his evidenced honest purpose of restoring Italy.     - Franklin Roosevelt

Obviously, these quotes are no longer mentioned in ‘respectable’ circles. And that’s my point: What is inconvenient to the current ruling establishment is dropped from the books.

When I was young, the USSR was famous for horribly twisting history to make themselves look like the great and mighty ones. They even made jokes about it on the original Star Trek. But here was clear evidence that history – in America – had been altered. In this case, parts had not been added, but they most certainly had been taken away. That rather shook my view of history, as it had been taught to me at school.

A few years later I came across an even more troubling instance of history being pulled out of the books:

I had been writing a few books for a major publisher, and one of my editors asked me to meet him for dinner, which, of course, I did. We discussed projects that we might pursue and generally had a pleasant evening. At some point we left off discussing our projects and talked about history. Somehow, we ended up at the Armenian genocide. He was surprised that I knew about it (many still don’t), but I had known quite a few Armenian kids growing up, and I had heard their stories.

Then, my editor took a deep breath and said, “then I want to tell you something.” He explained that a few years before, he had been working for one of the big three textbook publishers, and happened to be editing a high school history book. One day, he got a phone call from the US State Department. He was shocked, and asked them why they would be calling him. “It’s about the history book you’re editing,” the man said.

My friend had been raised in about the same way I had, so the idea of censoring a textbook was astonishing to him. “We need you to cut back the section on the Armenian genocide,” the man from the State Department said. My friend was horrified, and complained that it was the true history. “Yes,” said the man, “but we need to keep the Turks happy.” My friend’s 2-3 pages on the Armenian genocide was reduced to 2-3 paragraphs, and it was a victory that he got that much space.

According to all I learned in school, such things did not happen in America. According to all that is self-promoted about academia, they are the sworn enemies of such things. But they do happen – a lot.

I’ve encountered the same thing on museum walls: descriptions that are clearly misleading, but which glorify the rulership of our time.

There is much more to this, but I’ll let the point stand as I’ve made it thus far: History is manipulated. You can find the truth if you dig through old books and artifact records, or from some specialists, but not from schoolbooks. The books aren’t filled with lies, they just remove the facts that don’t make their bosses look good.

And this is not a trivial thing; it affects a lot more than school children. As Adolf Hitler was starting his aggression against the Poles, the London Times quoted him as saying: "Go, kill without mercy. After all, who remembers the Armenians?"

What is deleted from history can teach us nothing, and those who have this power use it to glorify themselves. This is a very dangerous thing, and it rules the schoolbooks of America and the Western world in general.

I’ll close with a line from Paul Simon’s song, Kodachrome:  "When I think back on all the crap I learned in high school, it’s a wonder I can think at all."

What you learned in school was a partial, cartoon version of history. You learned what made the big bosses look good, and no more.

SOURCE

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Froggy President sees the light

Democrats prefer France to the USA so is this a signal for them?  Guess not

 President Francois Hollande announced on Monday a series of measures to encourage the French entrepreneurial spirit, including drastic cuts in capital gains taxes — up to 65 percent — for the sale of small companies and a plan to make France start-up friendly.

Hollande, looking to stimulate flagging growth and cut into the nation's 10.6 percent jobless rate, also ordered the Interior Ministry to introduce visas for foreign entrepreneurs, and to speed up the process to make the country more attractive to foreign professionals.

"Half of the entrepreneurs of Silicon Valley are immigrants," Hollande said in a speech before some 300 entrepreneurs at the Elysee Palace. "We must waste no talent."

The Socialist president has been viewed by some as an anti-business leader, and infuriated entrepreneurs last year by proposing increased taxes on investments. In response, entrepreneurs, calling themselves "pigeons" — French slang for someone who has been duped — launched an online opposition campaign that quickly got tens of thousands of "likes" on Facebook, and trended on Twitter.

Hollande, trying to return to the good graces of entrepreneurs, said he was undoing that plan, and simplifying the system.

"There are no less than 40 formulas for dealing with capital gains ... 40 different ones. And now there will be but one," Hollande said.

He enumerated a graded scale for tax breaks on capital gains for entrepreneurs who bought start-ups: 65 percent if the company has been held at least eight years and 50 percent after two years. The tax advantage rises to 85 percent when companies are less than 10 years old, are being passed on to family members or the owner is retiring.

Experts say Hollande's initial plan would have meant an effective tax rate of 60 percent, compared with 15 percent on U.S. capital gains.

Hollande called the new system "balanced," ''just" and "durable."

"It is enterprises that create wealth and, therefore, jobs," the president said.

France has been raising taxes to fill a 30-billion-euro hole in the budget and meet a deficit target of 3 percent — set by the eurozone — of its 1.8 trillion-euro gross domestic product.

But small and medium-sized companies are the biggest creators of jobs and drivers of economic growth, and make up 99 percent of businesses in France and the European Union as a whole.

Other measures aimed at boosting the entrepreneurial spirit in France include wiping out the Bank of France notes on companies that fail "so that one can have a second or a third chance"

SOURCE

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There's nothing fair about the Marketplace Fairness Act

by Jeff Jacoby

IF TRUTH-IN-LABELING rules applied to Congress, the proposed law giving states the power to collect sales tax from out-of-state online retailers would be named the Marketplace Unfairness Act.

Sponsored by Senator Mike Enzi, a Wyoming Republican, and fast-tracked to the Senate floor this week, the legislation would strip away protections that have been in place for decades, unleashing tax-hungry states on merchants they aren't answerable to and tilting the playing field against small Internet retailers.

Under existing law, any state can require businesses within its borders to collect sales taxes from their customers. That applies to shops on Main Street as well as to vendors doing business by mail and over the Internet. If you're a seller physically operating within the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, for example, part of your job is to collect the requisite Massachusetts tax each time you ring up a sale in the state. At the same time, you can't be conscripted into serving as a tax collector for states to which you have no physical connection. The Supreme Court has repeatedly affirmed that merchants must have a "substantial nexus" with a state – such as offices, a warehouse, or a sales force – before they can be compelled to collect taxes on that state's behalf.

In practice this means that a brick-and-mortar retailer only has to calculate the sales tax charged by its own state. A bookstore at the Cape Cod Mall collects the Massachusetts sales tax of 6.25 percent; it makes no difference whether the customer at the cash register lives across the street or across the country. Online and mail-order retailers play by the same rules: If they have a physical presence in Massachusetts, they're responsible for any sales tax payable to Massachusetts. Neither traditional retailers nor Internet retailers are obliged to collect taxes for states they don't operate in. Fair's fair.

But if Enzi's bill becomes law, fairness goes up in smoke. Online merchants would become revenue collectors for every sales-tax jurisdiction in America – an estimated 9,600 of them, each with its quirks and quiddities. No longer would Internet retailers based in Massachusetts be liable only for sales taxes owed to Massachusetts. They would have to calculate and remit taxes owed to Tennessee and California and Wyoming and New Jersey, charging different levies for different customers, and somehow keeping up with the ever-shifting kaleidoscope of sales-tax rates, definitions, exemptions, and deadlines.

Yet the owner of the brick-and-mortar shop around the corner would go on as before, charging only a single tax rate and remitting taxes to only a single state.

Supporters of the legislation promise that this will all be less onerous than it sounds. The bill includes simplification mandates such as free tax software, and it encourages multistate cooperation in streamlining tax rates and centralizing revenue collection. MarketplaceFairness.org, a website created to promote the Enzi plan, offers the assurance that with modern technology, Internet retailers have nothing to fear. "Keeping track of a few thousand local tax rates," it says soothingly, "is no longer an insurmountable technical, administrative, or financial burden."

For mammoth retailers like Amazon or Walmart, the prospect of juggling "a few thousand local tax rates" may not be an intolerable burden. For countless smaller online businesses, however, it could be the kiss of death. And what happens when the technology turns out not to be quite as cheap and easy as advertised? Writing in the Wall Street Journal last summer, Overstock.com's chairman/CEO, Patrick Byrne, and president, Jonathan Johnson, warned against complacency:

"It took our team of 20-30 experienced IT professionals 9,412 hours over five months to install, test and integrate the software that let us properly calculate use tax in one additional state. The annual software license fees for the first year, the internal and external development and installation costs, and the cost of collateral hardware and software came to $1.3 million. And that's just for one state."

Whatever inequities exist in the current system, the proposed legislation would be much worse. There's a crucial reason why merchants can only be required to collect taxes for states in which they are physically present: Anything else would be taxation without representation. States must not be allowed to reach beyond their borders, imposing tax obligations on retailers who had no vote or voice in creating those obligations, no political recourse, no opportunity to be heard. Against such unfairness, Americans once fought a revolution. A craving for revenue is no reason to forget that.

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How Our Healthcare System Has Us Trapped

By John C. Goodman

The premise of my latest book, Priceless: Curing the Healthcare Crisis, is that most of our problems arise because we are trapped. We are caught up in a dysfunctional system in which perverse economic incentives cause all of us to do things that raise the cost of care, lower its quality, and make access to care more difficult. Perverse incentives are faced by everyone: patients, doctors, nurses, hospital administrators, employees, employers, and so on. As we interact with the system, most of us spot ways to solve problems. We see things we could individually do to avoid waste and make care less expensive, for example. But the system generally penalizes us for doing the right things and rewards us for doing the wrong things. Anything we do as individuals to eliminate waste generally benefits someone other than ourselves.

So what's the answer? Let people out of the trap. Liberate them from the dysfunctionality that is causing us so much trouble.

This message is precisely the opposite of what you are likely to hear from other health policy experts-on the right and the left. The conventional view is that we have too much freedom, not too little. Doctors are said to have too much freedom to provide treatments that are not "best practice" or that are not "evidenced-based." Patients are said to have too much freedom to patronize doctors and facilities with inferior performance records.

Hence, the conventional solution: put even more restrictions on what doctors can do and where patients can go for their care. Ultimately, the conventional answer to the country's health policy problems is to have government tell doctors how to practice medicine and to tell patients what care they can have and where they can get it.

The biggest problem with this approach is that it would leave us even more trapped than we currently are. Incentives would be even more perverse. We would have a plan designed by folks in Washington. But 300 million potential patients, 800,000 doctors, almost 2.5 million registered nurses, and thousands of others working in the system would find it in their self-interest to undermine the plan. My answer is just the opposite. I want all those patients and all those doctors to discover it is in their self-interest to solve problems, not create them.

Under the conventional approach, every doctor, every nurse, every hospital administrator will get up every morning and ask, "How can I squeeze more money out of the payment formulas today?"

My answer is just the opposite. Under the approach detailed in my book, all these people will be encouraged to start each day by asking, "How can I make my service better, less costly, and more accessible to patients today?"

SOURCE

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For more blog postings from me, see  TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, GREENIE WATCH,  POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC,  AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, IMMIGRATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, EYE ON BRITAIN 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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