An independent blog looking at things from a classically liberal perspective. We are independent of any group or organization, and only speak for ourselves, and intend to keep it that way.
Sunday, December 31, 2006
Saving the president's life but losing control of his own.
The death of President Gerald Ford, and the near universal praise for the man, brings to light an incident many people have forgotten. There were two attempts to kill President Ford and both failed.
In the second attempt left wing activist Sara Jane Moore fired a gun at the president. Her first shot missed. She aimed to fire again but a man in the crowd, Oliver Sipple, stepped in. When he saw Moore pull a gun he lunged for her and deflected her aim. She missed the president by only a few feet.
Sipple, born in 1941, had been a member of the U.S. Marine Corps had served in Vietnam where he was wounded twice. He moved to San Francisco, where the assassination attempt took place, and lived on veteran’s disability pension.
Sipple did what he thought was right. But his life was turned upside down. It came out that he was gay and the media descended on him. Sipple said: “My sexual orientation has nothing at all to do with saving the President’s life, just as the color of my eyes or my races has nothing to do with what happened in front of the St. Francis Hotel.”
Three days later he received a thank you letter for President Ford for his actions.
While friends of Sipple knew about his sexual orientation it was something he never revealed to his family -- and with good reason. His mother, a born again Baptist, upon seeing the news stories announcing her son’s sexuality cut him out of her life. Sipple pleaded with the media to leave him alone. But left-wing gay activists Harvey Milk thought Sipple could be sacrificed for the good of the community and was the one who leaked private details of Sipple’s life.
The loss of his family was devastating on Sipple. He filed a lawsuit against the columnist who first published the leak from Milk and against newspapers that wrote about his private life. But he lost the suit. Alienated from his family his health deteriorated and Sipple went into a depression and began drinking. He was fitted with a pacemaker. He was died at the age of forty-seven in 1989.
He save a president’s life but in the process lost his own. His prized possession was the framed letter from President Ford which hung proudly on his apartment wall. Sipple was sacrificed by Harvey Milk because Milk felt that it would further the gay cause by having it known that the man who saved the president’s life was gay. He gave no thought at all to what this would do to the individual gay man in question. This is the problem with with collectivists who discount the well being of the individual.
And this may also explain President Ford’s support for equality homosexuals. Ford was keenly aware that the man who possibly saved his life was gay. He sent a letter of sympathy to Sipple’s funeral as well.
Photo: Sipple is on the left. You can see him reaching out and grabbing Moore who is behind the woman in the stripped jacket and slightly to her right.
Evidence that American cops are out of control continues to mount. You will find video proof of what I mean below. Normally I would have it here so you could watch it but the person who filmed it placed it on Google video instead of YouTube. Google doesn’t allow such linking (stupidly in my opinion as I know it tends to mean I go to YouTube for material and ignore Google Video entirely).
Here are the details. Brett Darrow, 19, was driving in St. Louis when he approached a drunk driving roadblock which police set up. He had his video camera in the car and it was running. You will see the police intentionally deny him constitutional rights and overstep their authority several times. Darrow never broke the law yet he was threatened with arrest for merely invoking constitutional rights.
The police used drunk driving as the pretext for pulling people over. But what interested them in Darrow was not whether he was drinking. They wanted to know where he was going. He was being interrogated as to his private, legal activities which are no concern of the police.
The police ask: “Where are you headed tonight?” That is not related to drunk driving and while the can chat Darrow is under no obligation to answer that question. He replies: “I don’t wish to discuss my personal life with you officer.” His response is polite and to the point. The police order him to leave the car running and to get out of the car because he refused to be interrogated by them on matters which are not their concern.
The police officer then makes it clear that his invoking of his rights is the reason they will punish him by delaying him further. “I’m going to interview you because you didn’t want to interview. You didn’t want to sit down and have a talk with me.” So refusal to be interrogated illegally is now a reason to be interrogated illegally. Again Darrow responds politely: “I do not want to talk about my personal life.” The require Darrow to leave his car.
The video camera then records a police officer getting in the car under the pretext of moving the car. The pretext only existed because they refused to allow Darrow to pull the car over himself. Brett is asked if he has had anything to drink. He says he has not. Two police officers are asked to watch him while the third calls in his license as a pretext to hold him longer.
Brett asks: “Why am I being detained officer?” The police officer tells him “You better stop runnin your mouth or the other officer will find a reason to lock you up tonight.” So to ask a legal, polite question elicits a threat from the police that they will look for an excuse to arrest the person just to punish them for invoking their rights.
Darrow now get assertive, and properly so. “You’re saying you’re going to make up a reason to arrest me?” The officer says: “No, I didn’t. I said we would find a reason.” What the officers said is that they would “find” a reason to arrest the man because they don’t like his questions. Darrow then tells the police that they should know “all of this is being recorded”. I suspect the officer didn’t believe him and responded that they were recording as well. Darrow emphasizes how the police told him he would be arrested if he didn’t answer their questions. The cop denied it saying “I said do what he told you to do.” But he is not legally required to obey orders to surrender constitutional rights.
Darrow asks: “Why are you going to find a reason to lock me up when I’m only asking you why I’m being detained in a normal voice?” The officer ignores the question and tells Darrow to obey orders. Darrow asks: “Am I being detained?” The officer says he is. Darrow is told he may not leave.
At this point the officer openly lies. When Darrow asks why he is being detained he is told “Because you don’t have a driver’s license.” Remember the first officer demanded the license and walked away with it. So by obeying the order of the first officer he is told he is now in violation of the law and can be detained because he doesn’t have a license.
Darrow points out the first officer took the license and wants to know why the police officer is making this claim. The officer doesn’t answer except by saying: “Nineteen years old and you know everything.” Obviously he doesn’t know everything but he does know his constitutional rights and that upsets the police.
Darrow wants to know if all drivers are being forced out of their cars like this. The police refuse to answer. When the police return his license and insurance card Darrow again asks why he was detained. He is told “You didn’t want to answer my questions”. Darrow notes that he is not required to discuss his personal life with police officers when they are checking for drunk driving.
Darrow complains on tape to a supervisor about the police riding the clutch when they moved the car causing it to smoke. At this point the police supervisor says they had to move the car because they “were conducting an investigation”. Investigating what? The pretext of the stop was drunk driving and it was clear that Darrow had not been drinking. This seems to imply the checkpoint was merely an excuse to do other sorts of searches which they are not allowed to do.
This shows typical attempts by the police to intimidate people into surrendering legal rights. They are allowed to see if Darrow is drunk but not allowed to require him to tell them where he is going or to harass him and threaten him with arrest when he doesn’t answer their questions.
Notice: Scott Darrow has recorded a second incident with a police officer. We report on this second case here. In the second case the office in question has been suspended from duty. Read more here.
Another new piece of the puzzle falls into place. It has been assumed that the breaking of the Antarctic ice sheet is the result of anthropogenic global warming. But a new factor has been added.
It was known the ice sheet moves according to the twice daily tidal activity. But now it is discovered that “the rate varies 20 per cent in tandem with two-week tidal cycles” as well. And this “effect is felt even on ice more than 40 km inland.” And it is thought it could be felt even 75 km inland as well.
A glaciologist with the British Antarctic Survey, Hilmar Gudmundsson, said “We’ve know that the tides affect the motion of ice streams but we didn’t know it happened on this two-weekly scale.”
According to the press reports “Computer models of how Antarctica’s ice might be affected by rising seas and global warming... would now have to factor in tides....”
So here is a brand new factor in the break up of the Antarctic ice shelf. Now I wonder if there is a similar issue at work in the Arctic ice shelf as well. That seems reasonable. Yet when a large chunk of ice broke off recently in the Arctic there was no shortage of press reports attributing the break up to “the result of global warming.” Tidal influences were not mentioned.
In some ways it strikes me that any unusual activity in nature is automatically attributed to global warming until some other factor is discovered. Now there might be reasons that what the tides do in the Antarctic are not also true in the Artic. But shouldn't those be explained before blaming global warming?
George Bush was slapped hard by the voters in November. But obviously not hard enough. It didn’t get through his thick skull. He promised a “new strategy” in Iraq.
What is the new strategy? It is the old strategy but on a higher level. According to the New York Times Bush “is considering an increase in troop levels in Iraq of 17,000 to 20,000...”
Now imagine someone deeply in debt. They are told that they are approaching bankruptcy and have to change their ways. He gives the matter some thought and decides to double his spending. The man would be considered a lunatic.
Here is what I expect from the White House. The idiot in Chief will propose troop increases. He will propose getting more involved in Iraq than before. He will make no changes except to intensify what he is doing now. He will then make a speech where he will try to convince the American public that what he is doing is a a new strategy. I suspect he will admit that things didn’t go quite as he expected but that “now” things are different. That victory is possible, that a corner is about to be turned, that the people have to have faith, etc. In other words more bullshit.
Allegedly Albert Einstein said: “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.” A lunatic is running the asylum.
A minor problem with the film V for Vendetta is that the author of “illustrated novel” assumed that fascism in the United Kingdom would rise out of the Conservative Party. In reality the threat comes from within the Labour Party. And that is how it has always been with fascism. The British Union of Fascists was founded by Oswald Moseley.
Moseley was a member of parliament for the Conservative Party but his values were rather socialist in nature and he left the party, first as an independent MP and then he joined the Labour Party. But even the Labour Party wasn’t left enough for him and he joined Independent Labour Party. Moseley proposed trade obstructionism (much like American unions do today), state ownership of the major industries (such as Labour put through after World War II) and a public works program similar to FDR’s New Deal.
When Labour found Moseley’s proposals too radical he defected and formed the far left New Party. The New Party was supported by Aneurin Bevan, a socialist and the man who formed the British National Health Service. Several far left Labour supporters followed Moseley into the New Party and from that collection he formed the British Union of Fascists. It is no coincidence that Mussolini was first elected to the Italian parliament as a socialist and was a member of the Socialist International and edited the newspapers of the Socialist party.
This history lesson is to show why we should not be surprised that the frightening rise of fascism in England today is directly linked to the Labour Party and the odious Tony Blair.
Part of the Blair/Labour fascist agenda is a national ID card, or what amounts to an internal passport in practical terms. And now Labour is drawing up a new law to penalize severely individuals who don’t comply with the ID requirements.
The Telegraphreports: “People would be fined up to £1,000 for failing to return a dead relative’s ID card, while women who marry will have to pay at least £30 for a new card if they want to use their married name, risking a £1,000 fine if they do not comply.”
How nice of benevolent Labour Party. Imagine a loved one has died. So what is your first thought upon learning about the death of someone you love. Why, of course, it’s to run down to the local office of bureaucratic fascists and turn in the ID card. One can’t be selfish just because a loved one has died. The nation must come first.
Blair’s internal passport measures become compulsory from 2010. Compulsory means that government agents will be allowed to use violence against you if you don’t comply. Sure, at first they warn you, send you a letter, etc. But if you don’t comply they will use physical force. After all it is for your own good.
Orwell got 1984 wrong but he wasn’t far off. “As well as a picture, the card will carry a microchip holding biometric information such as fingerprints, iris or facial scans. Everyone over 16 applying for a passport will have these details added to the National Identity Register from 2008.” These are measures that Moseley probably would have thought a bit too extreme.
In addition this Big Brother program to follow the whereabouts of every resident of the UK would require that all current addresses be reported. Failure to do so would bring on the £1,000 fine. A high school graduate who goes off to college has to report his alternate address. If he moves, as he is likely to do several times, during his student days he must report each move to Blairite fascists. If he misses doing so he can fined severely.
Consider what the Labour government is doing. It is using force against every British subject. It is creating an internal passport required of every citizen which will include their fingerprints and biometric information about them. All this data will be including in a national data base regardless of whether or not the individual has a criminal record. In other words every British resident will be treated like a common criminal.
Of course under fascism every citizen eventually is a criminal. So why does Labour endure this vile creature at Number 10? Where is the Conservative Party? Oh, that’s right they are playing around with David Cameron, Mr. Labour-lite himself. Maggie: all is forgiven. Please come back.
It is sad that former president Gerald Ford has passed away. I have written before about him and argued that he did very little as president and for that we should be thankful. The big problem with Bush is that he done too much and all of it wrong.
Ford, it appears, was also a critic of the Bush policy in Iraq. President Ford had taped statements opposing the invasion of Iraq with the instruction that they not be released until after his death. In an interview with the Washington Post, in 2004, Bush said “Rumsfeld and Cheney and the president made a big mistake in justifying going into the war in Iraq.”
In another interview, given under the same conditions, Ford wondered “Where does (Bush) get his advice?” As for the increased surveillance of Americans by the Bush regime Ford said: “I would never do it. I was dumbfounded when I heard they were doing it.”
It was also revealed elsewhere that President Ford wrote a letter in 2003 which was very supportive of equal rights for gay people. In the letter he wrote a friend saying: “I fully concur with Al [Alan Simpson, former Senator of Wyoming] and you on ‘gay equality before the law.’ I sincerely hope that you prevail in the case of Lawrence v. Texas.” That case was the one which overturned sodomy laws.
Interestingly Left-wing journalist Alexander Cockburn “bid a sad adieu to Gerald Ford” for much the same reason we praised him when he became the oldest living president in American history six months ago. Cockburn wrote that Ford “was America’s greatest President. Transferring the Hippocratic injunction from the medical to the political realm, he did the least possible harm. Under Ford’s tranquil hand the nation relaxed after the hectic fevers of the Nixon years.”
Cockburn wrote: “Unlike George W. Bush, Ford was of humane temper and could mostly hold in check his bloodthirsty counselors.” Even Ayn Rand preferred Gerald Ford over Ronald Reagan, mainly over the abortion issue. Rand had meet Ford and liked him.
It is interesting to see the widespread quiet respect for Ford that developed. He was respected because he did what a good president ought to do -- not much. We could use a man like him in the White House again -- like immediately. And what is particularly interesting is that he was the one man who held that office without ever being elected as either president or vice president.
He was appointed as vice president when Vice President Spiro Agnew resigned during a scandal. Scandal then enveloped President Richard Nixon who resigned from office leaving Ford as president.
Ford did make an effort to heal the nation after Vietnam and Watergate. He withdrew the last troops from Vietnam told those that had fled America to avoid the draft to return home to an amnesty program and pardoned Nixon. While controversial the latter probably spared the country more trauma and the truth of Watergate was out already.
Ford did little to achieve greatness and that was a reason for admiration. It is the politician who sets out to leave his mark on history who usually screws things up. It is unfortunate that he was defeated in his bid for a second term by Jimmy Carter, a good man but a terrible president. Ford married his wife Betty (Elizabeth) in 1948. Betty was a dancer who studied under Martha Graham. She later founded the Betty Ford Center to help treat drug addiction and alcoholism. The Fords had three sons and a daughter.
The photo shows the Ford family during the White House years and includes daughter-in-law Gayle. Left to right: Jack, Steve, Betty, Gerald, Susan, Gayle and Mike.
The following letter was published in the Washington Post. It is from comptroller of the largest employer in the world discussing exactly how dire their economic situation would be. If this company were traded publicly the stock values would plummet. The problem is that the board that runs the company is corrupt and incompetent and the CEO is utterly stupid. The employer is the government of the United States.
The largest employer in the world announced on Dec. 15 that it lost about $450 billion in fiscal 2006. Its auditor found that its financial statements were unreliable and that its controls were inadequate for the 10th straight year. On top of that, the entity's total liabilities and unfunded commitments rose to about $50 trillion, up from $20 trillion in just six years.
If this announcement related to a private company, the news would have been on the front page of major newspapers. Unfortunately, such was not the case -- even though the entity is the U.S. government.
To put the figures in perspective, $50 trillion is $440,000 per American household and is more than nine times as much as the median household income.
The only way elected officials will be able to make the tough choices necessary to put our nation on a more prudent and sustainable long-term fiscal path is if opinion leaders state the facts and speak the truth to the American people.
The Government Accountability Office is working with the Concord Coalition, the Brookings Institution, the Heritage Foundation and others to help educate the public about the facts in a professional, nonpartisan way. We hope the media and other opinion leaders do their part to save the future for our children and grandchildren.
DAVID M. WALKER Comptroller General of the United States Government Accountability Office
Bankruptcy brought to you courtesy of George Bush and the Republican Party. Merry Christmas.
Goode is a one of these Know-Nothing Theopublicans from Virginia. And he is foaming at the mouth over the fact that newly elected Representative Keith Ellison is planning to use the Qu’ran in a private, unofficial swearing-in ceremony (no book of any kind is used in the official ceremony though many on the Right seem ignorant of that fact).
Goode wrote a letter that was a tirade against immigrants and which absurdly claimed that unless immigration is stopped the country will be taken over by Muslim and more of them will use the Qu’ran in their swearing-in ceremony.
Goode is an idiot. Immigration had nothing to do with Ellison’s faith as he converted to Islam years ago. Ellison’s family lived in the US for over two hundred years.
In addition the number of Muslim immigrants that would be necessary for Muslims to take over America would be in the hundreds of millions. There are currently 300 million Americans of whom an estimated 2 million are Muslim. So the electoral disaster that Congressvermon Goode predicts is highly unlikely even under the most favorable circumstances.
A good number of the Muslims in the US are converts in the black community. Stopping immigration won’t stop this from happening. But since most immigrants to the US are not Muslims Goode’s measure would actually strengthen the power of Islam relative to the rest of the population.
Apparently Goode thinks that strict immigration controls are the answer. But these controls are used mostly against Catholics immigrating from Mexico. How that has any connection to Muslim immigrants is never explained.
Goode is the winner of our “Moron of the Week” award.
The chairman of German’s Social Democrats, Kurt Beck, said something that was more true than the Left prefers to admit. He was heckled by an unemployed man at a meeting and he told the man that if he got a haircut, a shave and cleaned up he could have a job within a few weeks.
The man with long hair, nose rings, punk hair and dishevelled clothing was also wearing a button that said ”work is shit”. He was, of course, a recipient of the general “social welfare net” that the German government pays out. The 37-year-old parasite, Henrico Frank, apparently tried to show the politician up. So he went for a trim of his hair but fell asleep and found he got a decent haircut which was not his intention.
Frank, an alcoholic and member of a Left-anarchist group, claimed he would take “any job my health will allow”. But in fact he doesn’t want a job and prefers to live off of welfare. Beck made two appointments to meet with Frank in order to give him job opportunities. Frank didn’t show up for either meeting. And eight job offers he received were all rejected by him because he said they were inadequate or too hard.
The political Left attacked Beck for his comments. They insist the problems are due to the “system” and not to the refusal of some classes of people to work. Frank, however, seemed to prove them wrong. And while Beck appears vindicated it should be noted that he was attacking reforms of welfare laws. So in fact Frank’s refusal to take jobs offered to him, preferring benefits instead, puts Beck’s comments opposing welfare reform into question.
The photo is the cleaned up Frank who is still declining job offers.
The heavy hand of American police was witnessed once again, this time in Gilbert, Arizona. Police attacked the home of an elderly couple. The man, an Alzheimer’s victim, and his wife lost everything because the police ended up burning down their home.
Police claimed they were searching for a “serious criminal” who was linked to a series of break-ins but they neither found him nor any evidence linking him to Salvador Celaya and his wife. As the police attacked they threw a diversionary flash grenade through a bedroom window. The grenade set the house alight.
Oscar Celaya, the son, said: “We’re still kind of in shock and disbelief right now. You’re supposed to be afraid of criminals breaking into your house, not the police.” The family says they don’t know the suspect at all.
These sort of militay-style attacks are now routine by police and innocent people are constantly killed or suffer as a result. The militarization of the American police is one of the most worrying aspects of out-of-control government in America.
According to Reuters the United States is faced “with a decline in the number of overseas visitors and unpopular entry requirements”. In desperation the US government “is turning to Walt Disney and other theme park operators to brighten the country’s battered image.”
But in spite of promises by the American brownshirts “applying for American visas still involves standing for hours in long lines at fortress-like embassies” and “Stern officials at American airports often inspire fear...”
This is most certainly the case. I had lunch with a member of the British parliament recently and his family. He and his wife recently traveled to the US. And while he had a diplomatic passport the security people for the US hassled his wife over some technicality, one which could have been resolved easily if they merely turned the page in her passport and looked. But the official refused to do that for sometime preferring to give them crap. And yet this a member of parliament from a government that is considered America’s main ally. If this is how they are treated you can imagine how everyone else is treated.
So what is America concentrating on to solve this problem? Nothing of substance. The people they have brought in are to advise them have “taken note of the long, drab corridors, long lines of visitors and a lot of empty immigration agents’ booths, which added to wait time.” They are talking about repainting and making the oppressive process cheery. In other words they still don’t have a clue.
In Hartford, Connecticut police officer John O’Haremurdered the family pet of Glen Harris. The dog was outside the home with Harris’ 12-year-old daughter. The yard is enclosed and has a “beware of dog” sign to let people know there is an animal in the yard.
Harris says: “They didn’t knock. They ignored the sign, the dog sees or hears and protects my daughter, so he ran toward him -- not growling, not foaming at the mouth, not anything.” Police shot the dog three times
The young girl was trying to grab the dog when police decided to kill it. The cops claim that they were investigating a complaint about guns. But no guns were found and no one was arrested. Once again trigger happy police officers ruin another Christmas for a child. Nice work, officers.
When real morality goes out the window faux morality becomes dominant. That is when a government stops protecting the rights of people and becomes criminal itself it replaces true morality with legislated morality.
True morality is respecting the rights of others. It means not violating life, liberty or property. It means small government, property rights, equality before the law and minimal state interference in the lives of individuals. Faux morality throws all that out the windown in favor of unlimited government, state intervention, heavy penalties, inequality before the law and a host of other statist measures.
The Bush government jettisoned any pretence of real morality and instead focuses on faux morality. So it regulates innocent people, spies on them, incarcerates them, tortures them, etc. At the same time it pushes a “moral” agenda that has nothing to do with true morality (how you treat others) and pushes a religious obsession. So a regime that tortures uses political gay bashing to appear moral. A government that has basically forced Americans to carry de facto internal passports has fits over a brief glimpse of a breast.
In a Philadelphia court the immoral Bush regime is trying to justify its defense of faux morality. The abominable Federal Communications Commission, which exists on the false premise that the airwaves ought to be state property (socialism), is defending the fine of $550,000 which it imposed on 20 television stations.
You will remember the incident. Janet Jackson and Justin Timberlake were performing during the 2004 Super Bowl and Timberlake grabbed Jackson and a bit of costume came off revealing a bare breast for less than one second. A huge number of people didn’t even notice since they no doubt blinked when it happened.
But the immoral moralists in the Bush regime went into fits. CBS has paid the fine for the stations but said they were innocent. They were unaware the “crime” was going to take place. And no evidence has been presented to indicate otherwise.
CBS said that fleeting nudity has not been fined in the past. The thugs at the FCC say that just a few days earlier the Christianists there “found indecent the broadcast of nudity lasting less than a second.” Is anyone noticing this? A glimpse of nudity so brief that it doesn’t even come to one second is deemed “indecent” by a government that tortures people! What sort of warped morality do conservatives have these days?
And the most immoral thug of the lot, Bush, signed a law increasing the fine for “indecency”. Now Bush naked would be indecent. Bush clothed is indecent. Bush opening his mouth is indecent. I’m not particularly interested in a glimpse of Janet Jackson’s boob but the really obscene boob is the one in the White House.
The more a government becomes a threat to liberty and true morality the more it will replace it with faux morality. It will ignore the violation of Constitutionally protected rights, it will actively act as an enemy of individual rights, but it will bang the morality drum in the hopes of lining up support from the Christianists and Theopublicans.
The voters dumped the Theopublicans from Congress. Now it is time to abolish the FCC and privatize the airwaves. As long as there is socialist ownership of the airwaves the state will use this control to further the agenda of those who hold power.
Some really sick people run the schools and write the laws.
An unholy alliance of feminists and fundamentalists has turned the United States into a sexual basket case. People in America are horrified about human sexuality and fascinated at the same time. The typical American looks at sex the way most people look at a gruesome traffic accident. It's disgusting but they can't help looking.
I have outlined some of the real absurdities here on numerous occasions and won’t go through them again. But here is another piece of evidence about the sad psychological state of the United States these days.
What we have is bad law written by disgusting feminazis and fundamentalists enforced by moronic bureaucrats. An adult man pinching a woman’s butt might be sexual harassment. A small child doing it is likely to be just a pinch. The problem here is that these sex-obsessed adults are imposing their own desires on small children.
Mr. Vallance should be glad the hysterics that control the legal system aren’t requiring the child to register as a sex offender for the rest of his life. Vallance says he can’t even explain to his son why he was in trouble. “He knows nothing about sex. There’s no way to explain what he’s been written up for. He knows it as playing around. He doesn’t know it as anything sexual at all.” That sounds reasonable.
Principle Darlene Teach refuses to discuss the specifics but says: “Anytime a student touches another student inappropriately, it could be sexual harassment” regardless of the age of the student. Another moron running a school and miseducating children. A spokesmoron for the school district, Carol Mowen, drooled out a statement: “It’s important to understand a child may not realize that what he or she is doing may be considered sexual harassment, but if it fits under the definition, then it is, under the state’s guidelines.” Mowen called this blot on the child’s record a “learning opportunity.” Mowen is a moron, no I’m wrong. She’s a MORON. An evil moron who shouldn’t be allowed near children.
The local newspaper reports, and I hope you are sitting down for this, that in last school year 28 kindergarten students in Maryland alone were thrown out of school for “sex offenses” including “sexual assault, sexual harassment and sexual activity”.
America is collectively insane. Up until the vile anti-sexual feminists reared their bloated and ugly heads it was common knowledge that small children are curious and that pinching and even some sort of sexual play will take place. It was considered normal by all the experts who advised that parents or teachers who discover such things distract the child to other things and ignore it. A gentle conversation might be required but they were specifically advised against making a major issue of the incident.
Now even the most minor incident, in both senses of the word, is considered a major issue. Feminists pushed through an agenda that was anti-sexual to the core and fundamentalists were quick to rally to their cause. And the second rate hacks that get elected to public office were quick to legislate based on the obsessions of these two special interest groups. Now we are seeing the fruit of that bad legislation.
The Left Feminists and the Right Fundamentalists are both authoritarian movements. They represent the worst of Left and Right. And now children are the victims of their campaigns. These people are warped and now they are warping an entire generation of children. I predict the net result of this anti-sexual paranoia will be to create more real sex offenders.
If you feel like emailing the moronic Darlene Teach you can do so here: teachdar@wcboe.k12.md.us
Photo: Normally this would be a cute photo of kindergarten kids. But obviously they are all potential rapists and sexual harassers. In fact we obviously have a case of gay sexual harassment going on right in the middle of the photo. I suggest the SWAT team be called out to teach the pervert a few lessons. You can't be too careful you know.
I think anti-Semites are vile. Ditto for racists, antigay bigots and haters of all kinds. And that is one reason they should be free to spew their hate. We ought to know exactly who they are.
What makes these people dangerous? It is the fact that they would strip others of their rights. Behind most hate groups is a desire for authoritarianism of some kind of another. At the core the bigots hate freedom. Be they extremists on the Left or the Right -- they want to control the thoughts of others.
And this is why I’m troubled by the stupidity of Lord Janner, vice-president of the World Jewish Congress who spews fascistic comments in regards to discredited historian David Irving. Irving was arrested for questioning the Holocaust and imprisoned in Austria for this thought crime. Janner applauds such actions. Janner wants to imprison the tongue and shackle the brain.
Irving is irrelevant and so are his opinions. But freedom is important. Janner doesn’t like freedom and wants state control over the thoughts of others. Irving was finally released after serving one year of his three year sentence. Janner whined: “I am sorry that he did not server out his full term.” What a horrid, authoritarian thing to say. Fascism didn’t die in the bunker it lives on in the brain of Janner.
The low-life fascists on the extreme Right want to believe in Jewish plots and conspiracies which stifle “the truth” and Janner is most happy to give them exactly what they want. He is feeding the martyr complex of these twits. He makes their accusations sound credible.
Every time Irving is arrested, jailed, or denied the rights due him just because he is a human being his cause and his ideas are strengthened. Turning him into a symbol of Western freedom only helps the fascists and Nazis.
Photo: That is Lord Janner with the charlatan Uri Geller. One can be a member of the House of Lords and still be a nutcase.
It is a dangerous thing to have a president who is dominated by a religious obsession, who has visions of military grandeur and who is disconnected from reality. And President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is just such a man. And many Iranians recognize this.
Prior to the 9/11 attack Iran was a nation that was seething with dissent against the rule of the mullahs. No nation does well when ruled by religious fanatics. And Iran was the birth place of the modern Islamist theocracy. It was in 1979 that Iranian students overthrew the dictatorial Shah. And then stupidly helped the mullahs win power.
There is no question that the Shah had to go. He was a ruthless tyrant. His connections with the US government gave him the resources he needed to murder, torture and oppress -- the things politicians in Washington do best. But his replacement was no better. (Of course the US has been ruled by someone who combines the dictatorial ambitions of the Shah with the religious dementia of the mullahs.)
Now remember 9/11 carefully. On the 10th of September the American people were very divided. Bush was not particularly popular with the voters. Had things continued on as they were he most likely would have been a single term president. But the fanatics who attacked the US united the people behind a bungler and a fool. The man was an idiot but he was “our” idiot.
The net result is that Bush won a second term to the detriment of the Constitution, the US and the world. Osama bin Laden did what Karl Rove couldn’t do. He made Bush popular. Bin Laden said he would destroy America and apparently he found rallying support behind Bush the best way to do it. But widespread opposition to Bush vanished when bin Laden attacked. And it took years for it to reappear on the political landscape with the thrilling defeat of the Theopublicans in the Congress.
The saber-rattling president, America’s not Iran’s, also brought unity to Iran. Before the Iraq invasion dissent in Iran was strong. It appeared entirely possible that the continuing dissatisfaction there would bring about a reform government and overthrow the mullahs. Nothing discredits a religion so quickly as its connection with state power and in Iran Islamism was had ruled since 1979 and none, but the religious crazies, were happy.
George Bush’s disastrous invasion of Iraq, justified by various, ever changing, always false justifications but a lid on the dissent in Iran. Just as the 9/11 attacks stifled criticism of the Bush regime so did the US invasion of Iraq stifle dissent in Iran. While the Iranian people would be thrilled to get rid of the mad mullahs they didn’t want to be seen as being allied with the US government.
Decades of US aid and military support for the Shah and his dictatorship alienated many Iranians. Iran had a large, educated middle class that didn’t want the Shah and didn’t want the mullahs either. And they would be happy to dispose of the theocrats today. But the bumbling, confused foreign policy of global central planning by the Bushites put the Iranian opposition between a rock and a hard place. Happy to dispose of the mullahs they couldn’t and wouldn’t want to be seen as doing the bidding of Bush. American involvement in Iraq set back the more secular, more liberal reform movements of Iran.
It was not Bush’s desire to stifle dissenters in Iran. It was just another one of the many foreseeable consequences of American interventionism which Bush ignored. Bush feeds on delusions, lies and dreams and ignores things like facts and reality. He never sees the consequences of his own actions only the vision of what he imagines will happen when the world discovers that he is fit to rule.
But the students in Iran have again grown weary of their government --- I know the feeling. The New York Timesreports that the student movement in Iran “is reawakening from its recent slumber and may even be spearheading a widespread resistance against Mr. Ahmadinejad. This time the catalysts were academic and personal freedom.”
Ahmadinejad appeared to speak at Amir Kabir university only to be run off campus by the students. Students shouted “Death to the dictator” when Ahmadinejad tried to speak. Ahmadinejad is unpopular for several reasons. His economic policies are making Iranians poor, he is destroying what social freedom he can, he is using his power to remove reform minded academics from the universities, and his warmongering rhetoric is troublesome.
Taking his cues from Bush’s tactics Ahmadinejad decided to hold a political rally at the university. Bush screens his audience to cherry-pick only rabid supporters and stifle any appearance of dissent. Ahmadinejad tried the same thing. His government used to buses to bring in supporters to pack the hall and make it appear he was popular. Students on campus, seeing this deception, were livid and decided to disrupt the meeting.
Ahmadinejad cut short his speech and fled the campus but “angry students stormed his car, kicking it and chanting slogans. His convoy of four cars collided several times as they tried to leave in a rush.”
Will this anger grow? That’s hard to say of course. Chances are it will unless George Bush gives the Iranian people some excuse for rallying behind Ahmadinejad.
The delusion in the White House is frightening. It’s not just denial we’re talking about, it’s full fledged delusional thinking. Iraq is a disaster but how does President Moron describe the situation: “we’re not succeeding as fast as I wanted”.
Get that? America is succeeding in Iraq just not as fast as Bush wanted. Succeeding? By what definition? The headline of the press release from the White House is “President Bush: ‘We’re Going To Win’”. Right, George!
So America is winning in Iraq and it’s going so well we are sending more troops to die in the sand. Now the White House also says the “enemies of liberty” (I think they mean those not in the White House) “responded fiercely to this advance of freedom” and “they had success.” So America is succeeding and the “enemies of freedom” are succeeding. How nice, a win-win situation.
Bush also says the US can’t “give up on the hundreds of millions of ordinary moms and dads across the Middle East who want the hope and opportunity for their children that the terrorists and extremists seek to deny them, and that’s a peaceful existence.” Delusion! Hundreds of millions in the Middle East are not supporting the US occupation of Iraq. That is just Twilight Zone thinking.
Bush is making it clear that he won’t budge on Iraq. His fundamentalist mind set does not allow him to accept he was wrong, he was spectacularly wrong. His analysis was wrong. His decisions were wrong. His stubbornness is wrong. But Bush thinks that being consistently wrong is called principle.
If you carefully read what Bush says it is clear he will not leave Iraq no matter what the voters want. He says he will work with Democrats and Republicans to find “a new way forward that can succeed in Iraq.” His demented mind thinks “Victory in Iraq is achievable” and “most Americans” don’t “want us to get out now.” He’s willing to follow any path “that leads to victory”. He won’t leave because leaving “would hurt the credibility of the United States” as if his presidency hasn’t already done that.
In other words this lunatic thinks the war can be won. But he has no clue as to what a victory would look like or what it would mean. If he is so delusional as to think that Iraq will adopt Western liberal values then he’s totally insane. Why does he expect Islamists in Iraq to adopt Western Enlightenment values when he himself rejects them?
The rocker Johnny Hallyday is supposed to be the "closest thing France has to Elvis". I wouldn't know myself. But Mr. Hallyday has upset the French. He announced that he is leaving France and moving to Switzerland because of the onerous taxes. He said: "Like many French, I'm sick of paying what is imposed on us int he way of taxes." The International Herald Tribunereports that numerous French celebrities already live in Switzerland for the same reason.
Hallyday has said he would move back to France if taxes are cut. Currently the top income tax is an absurd 60 percent. Jacques Chirac doesn't get it. He slammed Hallyday saying he regrets "his behavior as a citizen."
Odd thing. If a politician uses the force of government to confiscate the wealth that others have produced they call that noble. But if someone takes legal actions to retain that which they earned they are slammed. Hollyday feels he ought to be able to leave what he has earned over the years to his three children. The French politicians think otherwise, they prefer everyone rely upon them and the public purse instead.
The Mayans in Chichen Itza, and elsewhere, used to perform human sacrafices for the good of the community. The beating heart of the victim would be cut out of their body and offered to the gods (beware the gods!). If you walk around Chichen Itza you will see the many stone walls with skulls carved into them. The place reeks of death. Now I wonder if now and then one of the sacrifices complained and was attacked for selfishness. No doubt they were derided as a "neo-liberal".
The November elections sent a message to President Idiot loud and clear. The voters were sick and tired of the fiasco in Iraq. Every opinion poll verified this, every exit poll confirmed it. Americans want out of Iraq.
But this brain-dead, arrogant fool is not listening. He is giving the American public the finger. The public said get out of Iraq. Bush says not only isn’t he getting out but he plans to send even more troops there to die in his quest to centrally plan the Middle East.
He is bankrupting the nation, shown utter contempt for Constitutions restraints on presidential power, trampled the Bill of Rights and now he is telling the voters he doesn’t give a damn about what they want. It isn’t just that he’s stupid, but that he’s so stupid he doesn’t realize he’s stupid. He clings to past mistakes because he can’t understand that he was wrong. He was wrong then and he’s wrong now.
Trade unions could be a good thing. Usually they aren’t. They are run by ignorant power-mad bureaucrats looking to use state power to establish rules for life which favor their members over all other members of society no matter who gets hurt in the process.
One of the little tricks the unions have been using is state initiatives to allow the voters to set wage contracts for all private businesses in the state. The majority of voters in a referendum decide what wages will have to be offered for the work other people do. For most workers the law makes no difference. For some it will raise their wages -- maybe. And for others it will mean unemployment. The union doesn’t give a shit about those they unemployed.
Randy Gray is executive director of the Marc Center which works with the mentally and physically disabled. He said: “Why would someone want to hire someone who works at 10 percent and pay them 100 percent?”
Rebekah Friend (who is no friend of the disabled) is the president the state AFL-CIO affiliate. She dismissed the problem. “Whether they’re disabled or not, they’re workers.”
Showing she is economically uninformed she said: “What do we value? Someone who gets up and, against those odds, goes to work every day, deserves the minimum wage, which is not a living wage.”
Rot woman, rot. She just pushed the Marxist labor theory of value. She just argued that merely showing up at work gives one financial value. What gives labor value is not labor but what it produces. Trade unions refuse to acknowledge this and continued on with the antiquated theory of value that Marx was erroneously pushing almost two hundred years ago.
Gray says that with this new law in place he has no choice but to stop their activities on January 1st when the law goes into effect. Bev Harmon of the Arizona Association of Providers for People with Disabilities said that the union-back legislation could destroy job opportunities for some 3,500 to 5,000 mentally disabled workers. Harmon says that her organization will be dismissing the lower-paid workers as well.
I always enjoy it when the Left runs off with their own rhetoric and seems to take themselves seriously. One example was a little diatribe in People’s World Weekly. As you might guess from the absurd name they are on the far, far Left. And there is an article there by Joe Bernick of what is called Salt of the Earth Labor College (yawn).
And his article is about the defeat of Proposition 107 in Arizona which was the constitutional measure to ban same-sex marriage. Bernick says the “corporate-owned press” said “our rejection of Prop. 107 was due to the western libertarian traditions, the spirit of Barry Goldwater...” But Bernick has another argument.
It was class consciousness and the solidarity of the working peoples of the world with the oppressed peoples of the world standing up the corporate power. He says “a quick check of election returns would have demonstrated to these so-called pundits that Prop. 107 was defeated in working-class and liberal university precincts...” It was explaining how working people would be harmed that did it. It showed “working-class Arizonans that this was an attack on working people. When working people learned that 107 was an attack on all working people, they responded with a resounding ‘no’.” It is surprising how many times one can say “working people” in a row.
But you have enough to figure out his claim. The workers of the world, well at least of Arizona, united and defeated this proposition. I did find it funny that he mentioned the major newspapers, corporate-owned everyone of them, had opposed the measure as well. Apparently the working people include the corporate masters of the newspapers. But let’s ignore that contradiction and concentrate on the main thesis. The working peoples (always plural in Left-wing jargon) defeated Prop 107. It wasn’t the well off but “working class Arizonans” who defeated the measure. Is this actually the case?
So do the exit polls support his thesis. Not at all. Surely income is some sort of gauge to tell who is working-class and who isn’t. If Bernick is correct then those at the bottom of the economic ladder coalesced together to defeat the measure while those at the top opposed it. If we look at those who earn less that $50,000 and compare them to those who earn more than $50,000 per year we find that 55% of the wealthy group rejected the measure while 48% of the poorer group did. In other words if the the poorer group were the only voters Prop 107 would have passed.
Individuals who earned $150-200,000 per year voted against the measure by 68 percent. In comparison those earning $15-30,000 supported Prop. 107 by 53% to 47%.
Education is also a good indication of working class or not. Most people who fail to graduate high school are working class, most people with postgraduate degrees are not. Well 65% of those who did not graduate high school supported Prop. 107 while 67% of those with postgraduate degrees opposed it. Sixty percent of high school graduates vote for the measure but 52% of college graduates opposed the measure.
If you look at race as a factor you find that 52% of white voters opposed the measure but 61% of black voters supported it. Which of those groups is usually described more at the working class? Latino votes were split down the middle on the measure and other (I assume mostly Native American, were against the measure by 53%.
Now it is true that the poll didn’t ask people if they were “working class” or not. But income, education, are often strong indicators for that category. And what we do find is that the working class groups tended to support Prop. 107 not oppose it.
Bernick does say it failed in university areas and that is true. Young voters tended to oppose the measure but most college students are not what you would call working class. And opposition to Prop. 107 in this age group was strong across all political lines.
These polls are not surprising though they do contradict this idea of a coalition of the working peoples of the world uniting against oppression. One reason for the Republican push against gay marriage was that surveys showed black, working class Americans to be the most antigay group around except for fundamentalist Christians. This was supposed to be a wedge issue to bring black voters over the Republican Party. That is why Rove came up with the strategy.
Historically it was the wealthier groups in society that were supportive of gay rights and the poorer groups that opposed them. Individuals deemed working class are more likely to want to bash a gay person than embrace them.
I was clearing out some things for packing and one item I came across was a review of the book Human Action by Ludwig von Mises. The review was written by John Kenneth Galbraith in 1949. Galbraith was one of those men endowed with what Hayek called a “fatal conceit.” He was a strong believer in the ability of men like himself to plan the lives of others.
Mises, on the other hand was one of those men, who while convinced of the rightness of his own views felt he had no right to try to control the lives of other peaceful individuals. He and Galbraith were miles apart. Mises is credited with stopping inflation in his native Austria, Galbraith came to the US from Canada and took a top position FDR’s “Office of Price Administration” where his job was to invent mandated prices for most items items sold in the US and then to decide how to ration the resources that became scarce due to his own price controls.
Where Galbraith lived a comfortable life as a central planner Mises was a refugee from Nazi tyranny forced to begin his life over again in the United States. Mises envisioned an economy controlled by the natural feed back loops of supply, demand, prices and profits. Galbraith saw an economy controlled by big, activist government in co-operation with big business and big unions. Milton Friedman said of Galbraith, that he dislikes markets because they “frustrate” his reforms and “enables people to have what they want” instead of what he and other reformers want.
So to say the least Galbraith’s review of Mises is a sneering attack. He suggest that anyone yearning for laissez faire, perhaps out of “nostalgia” would want to read Mises. He notes that Mises is a hard core advocate of freedom and “has not surrendered an inch of ground.’ And he does confess that the book is “a subject matter treatise in the grand manner” and “displays the impressive scholarship of its builder”. But Galbraith simply can’t understand why Mises is concerned about oppressive government and notes that when it comes to state control “Mises would have very little of it”.
He appears genuinely shocked that Mises “has grave doubts even about public schools.” Perhaps in 1949 that might be a bit shocking but if recent decades are any indication Mises had good reason to have those doubts and Galbraith’s faith in state planning seems sorely tested indeed.
Galbraith said that Mises was “a vigorous foe of autocrats and dictators but he also has little respect for people at large.” Oddly it was Mises who wants those people left free to control their own lives and Galbraith, shortly before writing these words, was the price czar of the United States imposing his wishes on every single citizen.
Galbraith ends his review with an attack on Yale University Press for publishing Mises. While he said the book should be published the publisher has “some obligation to scholarly restraint.” And we find a comment that shows how petty and small minded Mr. Galbraith must have been. He asks: “Does the publisher believe with [Mises], for example, that the war should have been fought without any allocation, priority, price or other controls, apart from high taxes and inflation?”
Ah, so Galbraith the Price Czar, the economic dictator, was upset that this book challenged the value of his work. Of course it could have been just a coincidence.
And the one remark I found most entertaining, and I use the word loosely, was this: “What are the ‘malignant’ consequences of not having followed Professor Mises’ advice in the last decade?”
This is astounding when you realize the last decade would have been 1939 to 1949. What were the malignant consequences of ignoring the kind of advice Mises gave? Well, shall we name a few: Stalin, Hitler, Mussolini, Franco, Peron and Salazar for starters. Galbraith never admitted that. He still had faith in the theory that it was right for him to act as economic dictator for millions of people.
One of Galbraith’s fellow planners, Robert Heilbroner said: “It turns out, of course, Mises was right” because “no Central Planning Board could ever gather the enormous amount of information needed to create a workable economic system.” In another confession he wrote:
“Capitalism has been as unmistakable a success as socialism has been a failure. Here is the part that's hard to swallow. It has been the Friedmans, Hayeks, and von Miseses who have maintained that capitalism would flourish and that socialism would develop incurable ailments. All three have regarded capitalism as the 'natural' system of free men; all have maintained that left to its own devices capitalism would achieve material growth more successfully than any other system. From [my samplings] I draw the following discomforting generalization: The farther to the right one looks, the more prescient has been the historical foresight; the farther to the left, the less so.”
Other than mischaracterizing a free economy with being on the Right, Heilbroner is correct. These men, all classical liberals were right. Heilbroner, Galbraith, Marx, Roosevelt, Mussolini and other central planners were wrong. And as one last warning from Heilbroner: “democratic liberties have not yet appeared, except fleetingly, in any nation that has declared itself to be fundamentally anticapitalist.”
Photo: the man who was wrong, John Kenneth Galbraith.
More and more I conclude that the bureaucrats running government schools are morons. Our moron of the week is Michael Shaffer, principal of McCulloch Middle School in Marion, Indiana. Yes, Mr. Shaffer you are the premier moron of the week. Of course you have steep competition since you do work in a government school but still you came out ahead in the stupidity race.
Two of the girls said McCulloch accused them of being gang members. Sure I see the connection. The girls are black, they dressed alike and blacks are gang members who dress alike so the girls are gang members. A perfect example of what government schools teach as logic.
The media tried to find out from Principal Moron why the girls were suspended. He said it was because they violated school rules. Of course the follow up question regarded what rule they supposedly broke. That was a question Principal Moron refused to answer. He said: “I can’t really address specifically a student discipline issue in regard to a particular student. I will tell you that we have a code of conduct here at McCulloch Middle School that we expect all of our students to measure up to. We’re talking about a violation of that code of conduct.”
Well if Bush can have secret courts then I guess Principal Moron can have secret rules.
If you feel inclined to protest his refusal to answer why students are suspended you can write Principle Moron at mshaffer@marion.k12.in.us. The photo of the bald guy with the goofy look on his face is Shaffer the terminator.
Government attack on meatpackers to push up food prices.
The Gestopo like raid conducted by immigration brownshirts apparently resulted in the arrest of American citizens and not just workers who lacked permission from the gods in Congress to hold a job. Jill Cashen of the United Food and Commercial Workers union said that "Stormtroopers came in with machine guns" and confiscated all green cards arresting everyone hold said cards whether the cards were real or not.
She said the arrested, which included legal immigrants, were put and buses and have vanished. "We're still trying to find out where the buses went." She said that children of these workers were left behind at day care centers because "Nobody knows where the people [the parents] are." The union says that the numbers of people rounded up and taking away could be as many as 5,000.
Consumers and the industry itself may be feeling the repercussions in a shortage of meatpackers, higher wage costs and, ultimately, higher prices for the beef that lands on America's tables at home and in restaurants.
Some analysts see the current emphasis on enforcement in the meatpacking industry as the precursor to getting an immigration bill through Congress -- by demonstrating the government's capability to enforce laws at the work site.
"The meatpacking industry has become dependent on an unauthorized labor force, and it is not good government to destroy an entire industry. In some way, there is going to be a meeting of the minds," said Mark Reed, a former immigration regional director who now runs his own consulting business, Border Management Strategies, in Tucson, Ariz.
Every labor-intensive industry -- the hotel industry, the construction industry, agriculture -- will be similarly impacted, he said.
Agricultural economist James Mintert, of Kansas State University, says that these moves will mean a short of labor in the meatpacking industry forcing up labor costs in an attempt to try and persuade native born Americans to get off their butts and take the job. (Okay, he didn't sya to "get off their butts", I did.) He said the result will be higher food costs. He noted Canadian meatpacking plants don't have access to undocumented workers and that their costs are much higher as a result. No doubt the Canadians will applaud this raid as it will make US companies less competitive. One anti-immigrant activist said: "If the price of meat goes up a little bit, so what?"
When the Racist Right calculate the "cost of immigration" they typically do not include the costs their policies inflict on consumers in those calculations. And as we have shown they leave out taxes paid by illegals, such as contributions to social security, in order to make sure the costs to government are higher than the benefits. Add in the SS contributions and the benefits exceed the costs. Add in the services they offer and how their labor is helping keep down food costs and the net benefit is even higher.
The New Jersey state legislature has approved civil unions for gay couples. The New Jersey Senate voted 23 to 12 to approve the measure and the General Assembly voted 56 to 19 to do so as well. Governor Jon Corzine has said he will sign the legislation.
A spokesman for Equality New Jersey was not satisfied saying “there was no guarantee non-government entities would honor the decision.” But private people should not be forced to do so. Government, on the other hand, must grant equal protection under the law. So all legislation for gay couples ought to be the same as for different-sex couples but what the private sector does ought to remain private.
In Ipswich, England five prostitutes have been brutally murdered in just two weeks. There is little I can say about that. But I can comment on how the situation is being handled. Take this report from the Guardian.
Prostitutes in Ipswich are being given money by police and drug workers to stop them risking their lives by touting for business on the streets, it emerged yesterday.
As officers continue to hunt for a serial killer feared to have murdered five women, it was revealed that women who work in the red light area of the Suffolk town are receiving cash handouts.
Detective Chief Superintendent Stewart Gull urged prostitutes to stay off the streets, saying: "It's not safe to engage a client or punter at this time."
One has to wonder about this tactic. Here is my thinking on the situation. This town supposedly has 30 to 40 women who offer such services. They are now being paid to not offer their services until the police can find the killer.
First, what do they do about a woman who says to them: “I am going to have to work the streets starting today.” Assume she is new to the business. Do they pay her also to not prostitute herself? Most women are happy to avoid prostitution for free. The supply of women willing to “not prostitute” for a fee has to be virtually endless.
But in any financial transaction where a commodity is sold there are two sides to the issue: supply and demand. Now let us assume that they pay to get the women off the streets and to refuse customers for the time being. Fine and dandy but what about the male customers? They are still out there.
Now when you reduce the supply of a commodity but not the demand you push up the price. In other words to hire a hooker in Ipswich is going to be more expensive. So the woman who does work on the side, while still collecting the charity pay outs, is likely to earn what is called a “windfall profit”. Circumstances will push up what she can charge for her service.
The supply of prostitutes to meet the needs of the clients has been vastly reduced so the price of a prostitute will rise accordingly. The higher price means more profit for those women who do prostitute at this time thus attracting them back to the streets -- especially if they try to work on the sly while still collecting the higher fees. In every field of commerce I can think of higher profits usually attracts more suppliers. In Ipswich the police and this charity apparently believe the opposite happens.
This does not mean that they couldn’t take an action that reduces the number of women on the streets. If they want to discourage these women from selling their services they could do so. But that would require them having “volunteers” giving away sexual services in a safe environment. If these charity workers were willing to give the men a helping hand for free then they would cease hiring the working women. That would drive down the wages of the women working and at some point McDonalds counter work starts looking good as an alternative.
If you want to reduce the number of women working the streets the profit in doing so has to be reduced not increased. Of course I’m not seriously suggesting that charity workers or policewomen give away such services. But I do think they are going to find that they are merely increasing the incentive for women to go back to work.
Obviously police have to do their work and find this killer before he strikes again. I wonder if my readers have suggestions as to how they could resolve the perverse incentives that they are now creating.
The only thought I have is for the charity to arrange with a local motel (there has to be one that is appropriate) to rent out the facilities entirely. Allow the women to all work from there. And arrange plainclothes police protection on site. It is the duty of police to protect people from murder. Instead of driving up the profits in prostitution, which is counterproductive, this merely makes it safer.
An Associated Press article reports that the US Mint has declared a new law(I guess we don't bother with Congress and cumbersome things like legislation anymore). The new order from the government says that it shall be a crime to melt down a penny or a nickel anymore. The reason: the metal in the coins are worth more than the coins.
Now pennies used to be made of copper and nickels earned their name by being made out of nickel. That is no longer the case. A nickel is made mostly out of copper (75%) and a penny is now mostly zinc and only 2.5% copper. Now here is the wonderful thing about government running money. It costs them more money to produce the money than the money is actually worth! These people have a license to mint money. They can literally just produce it but each coin the produce is worth less after they are done with it than before.
A nickel is worth five cents yet it costs 8.34 cents each to produce. And a 1 cent coin costs 1.73 cents to produce! Ludwig von Mises once said that only government can take two valuable commodities like paper and ink, combine them, and produce something totally worthless!
Of course now that the metal in the coins are worth more than the coins it is profitable to melt the coins and put them to a more valuable use. And that is what the government has now declared is illegal. Mint beaurcrat, director Edmund Moy, said: "We are taking this action because the nation needs its coinage for commerce. We don't want to see our pennies and nickels melted down so a few individuals can take advantage of the American taxpayer." Typical false statement from a government clown.
It is the mint which is taking advantage of taxpayers. It takes 8.34 cents of money to produce a coin worth 5 cents. So each time the Mint produces a nickel it has to destroy 3.34 cents of value. So for every $5 million in nickels they produce they consume $8,340,000 in value. Now that really is taking advantage of the taxpayer.
Associated Press got it wrong. They attribute this to "rising metal prices". What does that mean? The price of metal is the relationship between metal and the currency. The metal can increase in price while the currency retains its value. But the currency can also decline in value while the metal retains its value. In both cases it will take more money to buy the same amount of metal. What is happening in the US is the latter. The US dollar is dropping in value. The spendthrift president and the Republicans in Congress have decimated the value of the dollar.
Gold gained 22 percent in dollar terms in 2006 and 131 percent since 2000. One analyst notes that other nations "are trying to diversify their dollar holdings. They're buying gold and anything they can to get out of the dollar." Why? Ask George!
Remember when Republicans used to be good for the currency -- sorry I guess you're giving away your age.
The odious David Duke claims on his Jew-hating web site that he has proof that the “Zionist-influence media” lies. He writes: “It is being reported around the world that in my speech in Tehran that I stated that the ‘gas chambers did not exist.’” He says, “I said no such thing!.” And then to prove he never said it he offers his readers a link to his speech.
But the issue is whether the media, Zionist or not, reported this claim. I had read around a dozen or so different accounts of the Iranian conference and none I saw included this quote. Since Duke never links to a source for his claim I went to Google news to see what I could find.
The Scotsmanmentioned Duke but attributed this belief to Fredrick Toeben not Duke. This New York Timesarticle says that Robert Faurisson “devoted his life to trying that the Nazi gas chambers were a myth.” It mentions Duke was there but did not attribute such a comment to him.
I went through numerous clippings and found no such attribution. I searched on Google with Duke’s name and the quote and while I find articles with Duke’s name mentioned the quote was not attributed to him.
Now if the European Jewish Press did not attribute this quote to Duke then which Zionist-influence media did he have in mind? Now of course most Duke’s readers will focus on his speech and see (I assume) that he didn’t make this comment. Thus they will conclude Duke has again prove the lies of the “Zionist influenced media” but really the starting point is finding out who made this claim.
If no such quote was attributed to Duke then his whole comment is a fraud. Only if we are given sources for this claim do we then need to turn to Duke’s speech for evidence. I suspect his goal was to merely get people to read what is no doubt an anti-Jewish tirade. Mr. Duke has not provided any links to any media which attributes this statement to him. My search of major news publications does not turn up such an attribution yet he says media “around the world” is making this claim.
Here is a challenge. Since media around the world is doing this I would assume that it would be possible to produce ten major publications who have attributed this comment directly to Duke. Duke didn’t link to even one.
Duke likes to say he has earned a Ph.D. Apparently his Ph.D is from the Interregional Academy of Personnel Management in the Ukraine. This private institution supposedly receives lots of Arab funding and is heavily involved in anti-Semitic activities in the Ukraine. Before Duke “earned” his degree there (I didn’t know he spoke Ukrainian) he participated in an anti-Jewish program (not pogram, that’s later) there. Ukraine President Viktor Yushchenko issued a statement on the the institution calling them “an institution that systematically publishes anti-Semitic articles”. His “thesis” was an anti-Jewish manuscript which I suspect is very similar to his book on the same topic. There is an old saying that Ph.D. means “piled high and deeper”. In this case it wouldn’t be far off the truth.
The photo is Mr. Duke is one of his older uniforms. He supposedly had a shine to Nazi uniforms as well.
This is an astounding and inspiring story. Mayme Agnew Clayton was a university librarian with a passion for African-American history. Raised in Van Buren, Arkansas Clayton’s father, a merchant wanted his children to be exposed to “black people of accomplishment”. And from that time on Mrs. Clayton was interested in history.
Over her 83 years she married, raised three children and worked as a librarian and in her spare time she played golf and collected one of the most important collections of books, photos, films and ephemera of black material in the world. She collected first editions of nearly all the Harlem Renaissance writers many of them signed. All in all she has some 30,000 hard to find books by or about blacks. She has 75,000 photographs, 9,500 sound recordings, multiple thousands of documents and “the worlds largest collection of 16-mm films made by blacks”.
And she did all of it on her salary while raising a family. Her son, Avery is trying to open the Mayme E. Clayton Library and Cultural Center and I hope he succeeds. He has rented a former courthouse for $1 per year but is still raising funds. The only downside in all of this is that they are seeking a $150,000 appropriate from congress. Surely once the existence of this important collection becomes known there ought to be plenty of private donors willing to help house this collection together.
Mayme Clayton’s story is, to me, a very inspiring one. It is about achievement and a passion. It is about dedication, hard work and no small measure of entrepreneurship. I am in awe of what she accomplished and I wish the Mayme E. Clayton Library and Cultural Center a prosperous fund raising year, hope to see it become a reality and hope it is entirely privately funded -- and I hope funders come to the party for this project. It is very, very worthwhile.
It astounds me that she carried on her quest for knowledge in such a methodical and persistent way. Her collection just grew and grew and filled her modest home. One of the grandest collections to be assembled done on a librarian's salary. What she lacked in funds she more than made up for with passion. Hey, Hollywood: shouldn't this woman's story be worth a film along the way?
Frosty Wooldridge is one of those Right-wing types who is economically illiterate. Of course his ignorance of economics means he speaks out on economics all the time. Now, for some reason that boggles the mind, Freedom’s Phoenixgives him a feature article to promote his vision of a Right-wing, unlibertarian vision. Got to appeal to the militia types, don’t we?
Wooldridge combines bad economics, with Malthusian fear mongering and tosses in a dash of racism to liven up the mix. Stupid is as stupid does. Let’s look at just a few of the absurd comments he makes.
“We’ve got 14 million unemployed Americans while our government allows three million illegal aliens crossing our borders annually.” There is this assumption that the 14 million unemployed Americans is caused by the illegal aliens. False. Most unemployment is caused by ignorant politicians passing labor laws that make labor more expensive than it ought to be.
Here is a fact. America grows crops and it needs people to pick those crops. The workers who do that tend to come from Mexico. They drive up, pick the crops, and return home. Most go back and forth. They earn their income here and spend it in Mexico where it goes much further -- something large number of Americans now living in Mexico understand. But with crack downs those workers are finding it harder to get to the fields and farmers are losing crops due to a lack of labor. So where are all those Americans who want to work in the fields Frosty?
Everywhere I go in the world I see the same thing at McDonald’s. The work is not the highest paying nor the nicest. Legal manipulation of the markets mean all the workers are paid the same. There is no wage competition there. An immigrant can’t offer to work for less than the other workers. Everybody gets the same pay regardless of who they are. Yet the native born seem to shun those jobs while immigrants fill them disproportionately. Why? Because the immigrants are willing to work those jobs while the native Frostys of the world will not. The field jobs went unfilled because the Frostys didn’t want the work.
Now the bigot is not know for consistency. Certainly Frosty isn’t consistent. See all those illegals come to America to “steal our jobs”. And to refuse to work and sit on welfare. Yep, that’s it. “Dem dar aliens is takin our jobs and ain’t workin like real ‘mericans.” (Can’t you just see them saying this wearing their best, freshly ironed sheets.)
So immigrants, legal and illegal, refuse to work and live off welfare instead. Gee, they sound like a lot of native Frostys that I’ve known over the years. But as the saying goes, it’s not so much what you know that causes the problems but what you know that just ain’t so. Back in April I blogged about a new report on unemployment rates among various groups. Among native born Frostys it was 5.2 percent. Among immigrants, legal and illegal, it was 4.6 percent.
Of course if you aren’t interested in the facts and merely want to bash a specific group of people you don’t hesitate in make contradictory allegations. So that makes it just dandy to claim immigrants come to American and steal jobs while simultaneously sitting on welfare and refusing to work.
I love it when a “libertarian” web site, albeit one that tries to appeal to the lunatic Right, runs an article attacking immigrants who “defraud our tax system” while bringing us diseases at the same time. I must say this is the first time I’ve seen a libertarian site promote the idea that taxes are a duty. Now old Frosty says that along with bringing disease and defrauding the tax system they “usurp our English language.” Old Frosty doesn’t know what usurp means does he. His knowledge of English is on par with his economics.
Typically the racist Right accuse immigrants of not knowing English. In other words they don’t speak English. Frosty says they usurp English. Usurp means “seize or hold by force or without legal authority”. Does he mean “ignore”? That would be consistent with his claims. But usurp would mean they have grabbed control of the English language. Maybe if Frosty had better control of the English language himself we could understand what the hell he is saying here.
Like most ignorant people Frosty has visions of grandeur. He dreams of what he would do as president. As if eight years of an idiot in the White House isn’t enough. Frosty says he would form a brain trust of the finest economists around to advise him on the deficit. How nice! How about these fine economists? These economists, including real libertarians not far Right extremists pretending to be libertarian, said that “immigration has been a net gain for American citizens” and that “Immigrants do not take American jobs.” Hey, not the kind of advice Frosty wants! Included on that list of hundreds of economists are such well known libertarian thinkers as Dominic Armentano, David Beito, Peter Boettke, Don Boudreaux, Bryan Caplan, Roy Cordato, Tyler Cowen, Richard Ebeling, Fred Foldvary, James Gwartney, Thomas Hazlett, David Henderson, Robert Higgs, Jack High, Randall Holcombe, Jeff Hummel, Lester Hunt, Daniel Klein, Art Laffer, Deepak Lal, Steve Landsburg, Richard Langlois, William Marina, Deirdre McCloskey, Milton Mueller, Randall O’Toole, Richard Rahn, Mario Rizzo, Ken Schoolland, George Selgin, Vernon Smith, Richard Timberlake, Jr., Robert Tollison, Gordon Tullock, Karen Vaughn, Alan Waters, Lawrence White, Kevin Dowd, Ronald Hamowy, Pierre Lemieux, Chris Lingle, Robert Nef, and Jan Narveson. That’s only a fraction of the signers. The most brilliant economists around tell Frosty he’s full of it. But I bet most of them are from families that "immigrated" and you can't trust disease ridden, criminally prone, immigrants.
And what else does President Frosty want. “I would concentrate on assisting American citizens by making powerful executive decisions to stop insourcing, outsourcing and offshoring American jobs... I’d give 14 million unemployed Americans a chance to work their jobs at a living wage.” Cue ominous music, booted feet marching on the cobblestones can be heard in the distance getting closer and closer.
What is this rubbish doing on a “libertarian” web site? He is advocating an economic dictatorship. The president has no Constitutional authority to make “powerful executive decisions” to run all American businesses from the White House. In the rhetoric of the fanatical Right Frosty says: “I would not allow corporations to govern America.” What he won’t allow is corporations to run their own affairs. Where Microsoft produces is their business not the presidents. A company outsourcing, insourcing or “offshoring” is a company running it’s own business. Frosty is proposing economic fascism. But it does go nicely with his views on immigration. Sort of a matched set.
Again the desire for absolute power is strong on the Right. Frosty promises to use his “presidential power” to force aliens out of the country. I wonder which clause of the constitution he has in mind granting these powers. No matter, if it isn’t there just invent it.
Oddly he says that for “farm work” he’d create a pink card that allows migrant workers to work in the US three months a year. Apparently there are jobs that Americans don’t want.
Now Frosty says that if employers don’t check every pink card for “authenticity, the employers is (sic) fined and locked up.” I love it, “employers is”. I’m glad he’s out there defending the English language. Of course it’s not Frosty’s fault he doesn’t realize it ought to be “employers are”, the problem is that immigrants have usurped English and didn’t leave enough for him to use. And don’t forget they bring disease too.
Please note that along with running American corporations by executive decision from the White House he wants all employers to be immigration agents and will arrest and incarcerate any who don’t co-operate. Yes, but it’s to protect freedom!
He wound ban all immigration for ten years and then only allow 100,000 annually but only if the population doesn’t grow. See it’s that Malthusian stupidity that comes into play. Frosty, being ignorant of economics, thinks that the planet is being raped by capitalism.
Now Frosty would also take control of all media outlets in America. By executive order, by the will of the Fürhrer alone he would “require all TV, radio, newspapers and governments documents to be in English.” But would they be free to say “employers is”? His view: “If immigrants don’t like this 230 year ‘aspect of America, they would be free to return to their own counties of origin.”
Okay, so Frosty doesn’t know history either. As a small child I knew my great grandmother. She couldn’t read English or speak it. She did read. She read the Polish newspaper. And entire neighbourhoods of Chicago had signs in Polish, the shop keepers spoke Polish and church services were in Polish. In fact throughout American history there have been foreign language publications printed and distributed in America. To this day the Amish speak their own German dialect though for obvious reasons there is no Amish television. New York was known as New Amsterdam. To this day the names Harlem and Brooklyn are based on the Dutch towns Haarlem and Breukelen. This Dutch settlement was taken by force by the British those upstart immigrants who then “usurped” the Dutch language and replaced it with English. In the Midwest entire regions of Michigan, and Illinois were settled by Dutch who also produced a Dutch newspaper, De Hollander.
And the Dutch weren’t the only ones. The very first German language newspaper published in the US was printed in 1732. It was called the Philadelphische Zeitung and the publisher was a usurper of English named Benjamin Franklin. One web site notes that every major American city and some smaller ones, prior to World War I, “had at least one German-language newspaper.” They note that at one time there were 800 newspapers in the US published in German alone. And New Yorker Staats-Zeitung, started in 1834 is still published in German today.
I will give Frosty credit. His knowledge of history is almost as good as his economics.
Frosty would ban professional lobbyists as well by executive order. Apparently he doesn’t have much use for the Constitutional process of changing things. Instead of laws debated in Congress he prefers to issue edicts and orders and just force people to obey. Sure, I see why a libertarian web site would publish this rot.
As for education he proposes centralization not in the hands of Congress but in his own hands. He says he “would move to maintain closed and protected high school campuses” and would consider “separate all boys and girls schools”. Apparently he isn’t interested in the Constitution since the president has no such powers over local schools. But so far Frosty isn’t paying much attention to the Constitution. Maybe he’s a Republican.
He also promises to “stop instant citizenship for any child born in the United States by an illegal alien parent.” Not only doesn’t the president have this power but it is in direct violation of the US Constitution which states that: “All persons born...in the United States... are citizens of the United States.” Hey Bush ignores the Constitution by shouting “terrorists” and Frosty would ignore it by shouting “immigrants”.
Frosty would also “change the drunk driving laws”. Once again that this is not a federal issue and not under the authority of the president seems to escape him. He isn’t interested in Constitutional government he wants a dictatorship.
Of course he has to mention 9/11 and distort the facts to boot. “September 11, 2001 wouldn’t have happened if we had taken care of our own borders with strict immigration controls in the first place.” Again none of the 9/11 terrorists were in the US illegally. None of them crossed the border without permission.
Frosty’s dictatorship is not finished. He would institute socialized health care for America. He would spend “billions” of other people’s money on alternative fuels, he would create a National Population Policy -- and remember he is against population growth so expect that policy to control the reproduction of Americans.
He says “That’s for starters. I’d run the presidency with common sense, rational thinking, and reasonable planning.” Ah, that “reasonable planning”, that desire to centrally control a society. This is not rational nor is it common sense. It’s a dictatorship.
Picture: Isn't that about how you envisioned him looking? Now be honest. And the fashion sense! He's one chic chick magnet.
The death of President Gerald Ford, and the near universal praise for the man, brings to light an incident many people have forgotten. There were two attempts to kill President Ford and both failed.
DiggIt!
Reddit
Del.icio.us
Slashdot It!
|
