Children whose mothers work are 'less healthy'

What a colossal heap of steaming crap the report below is. They did NOT show that the kids are less healthy. All they showed is that the kids ate less fruit and veg -- and the benefit of fruit and veg is little more than an urban myth. Traditional Eskimos eat practically none but have LOW rates of cardiovascular disease etc. And THAT has been known for around a century!

But even forgetting Eskimos, the authors have certainly not demonstrated any harm from the pattern of food intake that they observed. What evidence is there to set a particular level of fruit and veg intake as being "enough"? Official propaganda about "5 serves" has no foundation in double blind studies that I have ever been able to find -- even though such studies should be relatively easy to do. We now know that official recommendations about how much alcohol one should drink were just guesswork, so I have got $100 for anyone who shows me that the "5 serves" recommendation is any different. Further, I don't like to kick a dead horse but the findings are based on self-reports -- which are notoriously unreliable.

The journal article is here. Its title is "Examining the relationship between maternal employment and health behaviours in 5-year-old British children". The leading author is Summer Sherburne Hawkins


The children of working mothers are less healthy than those who stay at home, according to an authoritative study by British researchers.

Almost two out of three mothers with children under five work in Britain with numbers expected to rise, but new research has shown this can affect children's health.

In a study which will cause renewed debate over who have to divide their time between caring for their offspring and going out to work, the researchers found children whose mothers worked were more likely to be driven to school, to watch more than two hours of TV a day, and have sweetened drinks between meals. Children of mothers who worked full time also ate less fruit and vegetables, the study suggests. [How awful!] Middle class families suffer the same problems as the findings remained similar even when household income was taken into account, the paper said.


Encouraging mothers to return to work has been a key Labour policy and Patricia Hewitt said in 2004 when she was Trade and Industry Secretary that mothers who do not return to work were 'a real problem'.

The research, on more than 12,000 British children aged five, was published in the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health. The research, from a team at the Institute of Child Health in London, found although children whose mothers worked full time ate less fruit and vegetables, the link disappeared when looking at mothers who worked part-time, the research showed. However, there was no difference between working mothers and non-working mothers on the level of exercise a child took or whether they mainly snacked on crisps and sweets between meals.

Research author, Professor Catherine Law, paediatric epidemiologist at the Institute of Child Health, said: "Our results do not imply that mothers should not work. "Rather, they highlight the need for policies and programmes to help support parents to create a healthy environment for their children."

The researchers noted that around 60 per cent of women with a child aged five or younger in the UK or USA are employed, adding in the study: "Time constraints may limit parents’ capacity to provide their children with healthy foods and opportunities for physical activity. "Although we found that flexible work arrangements were not detrimental, they are unlikely to be important in helping parents support the development of positive health behaviours in their children."

They recommended nurseries and childminders should help bridge the gap, by helping ensure children got their recommended levels of fruit, vegetables and exercise: "Policies and regulations can create an environment that promotes healthy eating and physical activity. "Providing structured guidance could support parents by ensuring that the foods and physical activity offered at childcare would help their children to achieve dietary and physical activity recommendations."

A total of 30 per cent (4,030) of the mothers had not worked since the birth of their child but the rest were employed. They typically worked 21 hours per week and for 45 months. The mothers were questioned about the hours they worked and their children's diet, exercise and activity levels when the youngsters were five.

The findings showed that after factors such as mother's education, socioeconomic circumstances and ethnic origin were taken into account, children were 55 per cent more likely to be driven to school if their mother worked 21 hours or more a week. [That's bad?? Sounds safer to me] They were 33 per cent more likely to watch more than two hours of TV a day, than children whose mothers did not work at all.

Lucy Lloyd, director of communications for the Family and Parenting Institute, said the study does not say where the children are being cared for while the mothers are working, whether they are in formal childcare or being looked after by a relative. She added: "We should not use this study to blame working mothers, we do not want a stick to beat them with. It is difficult to draw any firm conclusions from this paper."

Jill Kirby, director for the Centre for Policy Studies said: "The overall picture seems to confirm earlier studies where mothers are more rushed and trying to deal with the demands of working life they are less likely to be able or motivated to ensure their children have a healthy diet and lifestyle. "The answer is not more government regulation but more choice for families to enable them to choose parental care over childcare where they want to and to relieve some of the pressure mothers are put under to place their children into formal care instead of looking after them at home themselves, especially in the early years."

Sue Palmer, an education consultant and writer, said she was not surprised about the new research. She said: "The simple common sense explanation is that the parent knows the child so they know the best way to persuade it to behave and teach good habits. If you don't know your little one that's not so easy. "If parents are close to those children in those first three years, they can set up default habits of eating, activity, play, bedtime routines, mealtime rituals which can help to counter the effects of consumer messages that children are often getting, very often more towards junk food. "If you can set up default habits when the child is very small through the close relationship, it seems there is a good chance those habits can continue. If they aren't set up early, it is more difficult to set up these habits."

A spokesman for the Department of Health said: "Our Change4Life movement is already helping over 370,000 families eat well, move more and live longer by helping them to understand the harm that fat and added sugar can cause to children’s health, and offering them simple yet effective ways to make changes to their diet and increase their activity levels. “This is part of the Government's £372 million pound strategy to reduce childhood obesity."

SOURCE

Posted by John Ray (M.A.; Ph.D.). For a daily critique of Leftist activities, see DISSECTING LEFTISM. To keep up with attacks on free speech see TONGUE-TIED. Also, don't forget your daily roundup of pro-environment but anti-Greenie news and commentary at GREENIE WATCH . Email me (John Ray) here

Muslim stupidity again

And official stupidity in pandering to it. The health and welfare of a patient should always be the first priority of paramedics. Muslim males are incredibly insecure about their women -- a sign of weak character, it seems to me

A PRIVATE ambulance crew who stopped at a major accident where a baby's life was in the balance claim they were abused and ordered to leave the scene. Rian Holden chanced on a Melton crash scene where eight people were injured after their people-carrier flipped on Sunday. He said that he and his partner stopped to help Ambulance Victoria crews, who gladly accepted. Mr Holden said paramedics were struggling to attend to all the injured -- with both a mother and her child in a critical condition.

The private operator, who runs Event Medical Solutions, said he followed instructions of paramedics, helping move the child on to a spine board and administering first aid to others while his partner sat with an injured Muslim woman in traditional dress.

But Mr Holden said problems arose as he took the blood pressure and pulse rate of the injured woman. Ambulance Victoria operations manager Paul Holman had ordered him to leave. "It was in bad taste," Mr Holden said. "We copped a gob full of abuse. It makes you not want to do that in future. "It's all because he has a problem with me. Everyone was helping and we rendered basic first aid."

Other trained medical professionals stopped at the scene, including two nurses, while bystanders sheltered the injured from high winds. As helicopters transported the critically injured mother and child, police were asked to ensure Mr Holden left the site.

Mr Holden has written to Police and Emergency Minister Bob Cameron and to Ambulance Victoria chief executive officer Greg Sassella, demanding an apology. But Ambulance Victoria's Mr Holman said he was only short with the private operator because he had the welfare of patients on his mind. He said one of the injured men was becoming irate that Mr Holden was treating his wife -- that created a culturally sensitive situation. "I don't know him (Mr Holden) at all," Mr Holman said. "These people are Muslim. I asked him to get out of the ambulance, thanked him and asked him to leave.

"I was probably short because I had eight critically ill patients. I wasn't in the mood to have a long conversation. "He was asked to leave politely. And I did get the police to make sure he left." Mr Holman said he was concerned about Mr Holden's credentials but insisted he had not been rude to him.

SOURCE

Posted by John Ray (M.A.; Ph.D.). For a daily critique of Leftist activities, see DISSECTING LEFTISM. To keep up with attacks on free speech see TONGUE-TIED. Also, don't forget your daily roundup of pro-environment but anti-Greenie news and commentary at GREENIE WATCH . Email me (John Ray) here

Those who enable our liberty and freedom

ABC News - Two boats carrying asylum seekers have been intercepted off Australia's north-west coast. Authorities say one of the boats was intercepted late yesterday afternoon north-west of Darwin and was carrying 12 passengers. The second boat was found north of Ashmore Reef and had 28 passengers and 4 crew on board. All on board the boats are on their way to Christmas Island for security, identity and health checks. ......Nine boats have tried to enter Australia illegally in the past month, bringing a total of about 470 passengers and crew.

7News - Federal Treasurer Wayne Swan insists none of the government's stimulus package was wasted despite more than $80 million worth of payments going to people living overseas. Centrelink has confirmed 68,812 people living abroad received up to $1400 each, a total of $82.2 million, Fairfax reports.
One things for sure folks, we in Australia certainly have money, and plenty of it, free healthcare, millions thrown around after illegals, food, housing, healthcare, welfare, free needles for crack addicts, free this, free that. It's like the land of milk and honey the way our government is spending and funding all sorts of schemes and groups. You'd think that with all this money being flushed down various toilets, that we'd easily have a couple of thousand for those that protect this nation, those that lay down their lives so that the above mentioned parasites masquerading as politicians and leaders can have fun with all them dollar bills. Think again folks.
News.com.au - A PREGNANT war widow will be allowed to stay in her government-owned house for another year, as the Federal Government and defence officials attempt to hose down a row about compensation arrangements for the loss of her soldier husband in Afghanistan. The Government has ordered an urgent departmental investigation into the circumstances facing Breeanna Till, who is also looking after two of Sergeant Brett Till's children from a previous relationship. Ms Till was facing the loss of her southern Sydney home, which is owned by the Defence Housing Authority.
You see that's not the worst of it, this widow who looks after the children of the brave soldier that paid the ultimate price for this nation only receives $305 a week from the bureaucratic scum who aren't fit to clean his shoes. We apparently have millions and millions to piss away on people who don't even live here, on people sneaking in through the back door but only a piddling 300 bucks a week for those that guarantee their lives.

Oh, and these scumbags only decided to let her stay in the house for another year because the media and the public arrived at their door with buckets and buckets of shame to pour all over them. Only the stench of shame, the withering looks and scarifying words could make them do the right thing. I still remember the zeal with which the defense department went after our SAS because their own computer system screwed up and double-paid them, heavens above, it was almost as if the SAS had snuck in at 3am and stole their children's Christmas toy money! If only they'd go after pedophiles, rapists and mass-murderers with such zeal.

Our prime minister will stand before the camera with a grim face telling us how much he values their sacrifice, how wonderful they are and how sorry he is when one of our finest falls, but when push comes to shove, krudd is nowhere to be found. Sorry folks, no time or actual support for our soldiers, he's far too busy fighting the war on carbon, leading the way for the world you know, the end is nigh, the time is now to bankrupt the nation, you must give up so much so I can ponce around on the world stage like some sort of super-fairy.

A word of advice to western nations as the world's only good superpower ham-strings, hog-ties and de-balls itself in the pursuit of hope and change, careful when you kick sand in the face of your soldiers and abandon their loved ones in their time of need. The western world is not superior to the rest of this planet because we have two brains in our heads, look better, are 10 feet tall or won some planetary lottery. We are far better off and far more powerful than our numbers should allow us because we are free citizens with rights and liberties that few others enjoy. These are not provided by thousands of lawyers, organizations of sniveling weasels, great orators and other bureaucratic parasites with rules and regulations that no one understands.

It is because men are ready to bear arms, man the gates, protect the walls and do what they need to do; all in the knowledge that they have rights, their families have rights and their sacrifice will be remembered and their loved ones will always be looked after. If we start abandoning them and their families, then we no longer deserve the protection they provide, the rights we enjoy and the freedom they guarantee. If we have no money [which is not the case here], then we go without and realign our priorities. If we love our freedom and liberty, then we must honor and protect that which enables both.

Lots of climate skeptics among Australia's conservatives

(Reminder for readers outside Australia: The Liberal party is Australia's major conservative party)

Only 12 members of Malcolm Turnbull's backbench support their leader's plan to negotiate with Labor on an emissions scheme. [And the National Party is SOLIDLY opposed]

The opposition's emissions trading spokesman says he's not surprised two-thirds of Liberal backbenchers are opposed to negotiating with Labor over its carbon pollution reduction scheme. But Ian Macfarlane insists the alternative is to let Kevin Rudd force a "crazy" scheme on Australia that could destroy the economy. It's been revealed more than two-thirds of Liberal backbenchers disagree with Malcolm Turnbull's plan to negotiate amendments with the government on its ETS.

Just 12 of 59 federal Liberal MPs support Mr Turnbull's decision to negotiate, The Australian reports. Another 41 want the opposition to either oppose the draft laws completely or negotiate amendments only if a parliamentary vote is delayed until after global climate change talks in December.

"It is obvious to everyone on our side of politics that this is an emissions trading scheme, in its current form, that will cost jobs and will see industry close and move overseas," Mr Macfarlane told ABC Radio. "On that basis, I'm not surprised to see such strong opposition from the backbench." But while everyone in the coalition would prefer the legislation not to come before parliament until after Copenhagen, the prime minister was vowing to rush "headlong into this" so the coalition had to negotiate.

"I'm being pragmatic and I'm being open with everybody," Mr Macfarlane said. "The reality is we do not control the parliament. Control of the parliament lies with the prime minister (and) he is on this crazy path that will potentially destroy Australia's economy. "Without being able to stop him we need to ensure that the legislation that goes forward is in fact legislation that will protect jobs ... and industry." Mr Macfarlane admitted the partyroom would have the final say, but stressed the best option was to amend the legislation "if Kevin Rudd won't see sense".

SOURCE

Posted by John Ray (M.A.; Ph.D.). For a daily critique of Leftist activities, see DISSECTING LEFTISM. To keep up with attacks on free speech see TONGUE-TIED. Also, don't forget your daily roundup of pro-environment but anti-Greenie news and commentary at GREENIE WATCH . Email me (John Ray) here

The French have got more balls than Obama

President Obama wants a unified front against Iran, and to that end he stood together with Nicolas Sarkozy and Gordon Brown in Pittsburgh on Friday morning to reveal the news about Tehran's secret facility to build bomb-grade fuel. But now we hear that the French and British leaders were quietly seething on stage, annoyed by America's handling of the announcement.

Both countries wanted to confront Iran a day earlier at the United Nations. Mr. Obama was, after all, chairing a Security Council session devoted to nonproliferation. The latest evidence of Iran's illegal moves toward acquiring a nuclear weapon was in hand. With the world's leaders gathered in New York, the timing and venue would be a dramatic way to rally international opinion.

President Sarkozy in particular pushed hard. He had been "frustrated" for months about Mr. Obama's reluctance to confront Iran, a senior French government official told us, and saw an opportunity to change momentum. But the Administration told the French that it didn't want to "spoil the image of success" for Mr. Obama's debut at the U.N. and his homily calling for a world without nuclear weapons, according to the Paris daily Le Monde. So the Iran bombshell was pushed back a day to Pittsburgh, where the G-20 were meeting to discuss economic policy.

Le Monde's diplomatic correspondent, Natalie Nougayrède, reports that a draft of Mr. Sarkozy's speech to the Security Council Thursday included a section on Iran's latest deception. Forced to scrap that bit, the French President let his frustration show with undiplomatic gusto in his formal remarks, laying into what he called the "dream" of disarmament. The address takes on added meaning now that we know the backroom discussions.

"We are right to talk about the future," Mr. Sarkozy said, referring to the U.S. resolution on strengthening arms control treaties. "But the present comes before the future, and the present includes two major nuclear crises," i.e., Iran and North Korea. "We live in the real world, not in a virtual one." No prize for guessing into which world the Frenchman puts Mr. Obama.

"We say that we must reduce," he went on. "President Obama himself has said that he dreams of a world without nuclear weapons. Before our very eyes, two countries are doing exactly the opposite at this very moment. Since 2005, Iran has violated five Security Council Resolutions . . .

"I support America's 'extended hand.' But what have these proposals for dialogue produced for the international community? Nothing but more enriched uranium and more centrifuges. And last but not least, it has resulted in a statement by Iranian leaders calling for wiping off the map a Member of the United Nations. What are we to do? What conclusions are we to draw? At a certain moment hard facts will force us to make decisions."

We thought we'd never see the day when the President of France shows more resolve than America's Commander in Chief for confronting one of the gravest challenges to global security. But here we are.

SOURCE

Posted by John Ray (M.A.; Ph.D.). For a daily critique of Leftist activities, see DISSECTING LEFTISM. To keep up with attacks on free speech see TONGUE-TIED. Also, don't forget your daily roundup of pro-environment but anti-Greenie news and commentary at GREENIE WATCH . Email me (John Ray) here

Massive scientific fraud: Blatant and grossly deceptive data selection ("cherrypicking") by Warmist "scientists"

These guys would not make a real scientist's a**hole. They were pretending to use tree-ring data to create a picture of the climate before thermometers were invented. And they claimed that their data showed no Medieval warm period but record warming in the late 20th century. And their data did exactly that. But how did they get their data? By ignoring a whole heap of data and just picking out a tiny subset of trees that suited their preconceptions. And if you use ALL the tree-ring data, you get totally opposite results. See the divergence in the graph below. Following the graph is a summary of the huge battle skeptical scientists had in order to get the raw data concerned. The Warmists knew that they had committed a repeated fraud and did their damndest to cover it up. Scientific fraud is a serious matter. They should lose their jobs.



Here’s a re-cap of this saga that should make clear the stunning importance of what Steve has found. One point of terminology: a tree ring record from a site is called a chronology, and is made up of tree ring records from individual trees at that site. Multiple tree ring series are combined using standard statistical algorithms that involve detrending and averaging (these methods are not at issue in this thread). A good chronology–good enough for research that is–should have at least 10 trees in it, and typically has much more.

1. In a 1995 Nature paper by Briffa, Schweingruber et al., they reported that 1032 was the coldest year of the millennium – right in the middle of the Medieval Warm Period. But the reconstruction depended on 3 short tree ring cores from the Polar Urals whose dating was very problematic. http://www.climateaudit.org/?p=877.

2. In the 1990s, Schweingruber obtained new Polar Urals data with more securely-dated cores for the MWP. Neither Briffa nor Schweingruber published a new Polar Urals chronology using this data. An updated chronology with this data would have yielded a very different picture, namely a warm medieval era and no anomalous 20th century. Rather than using the updated Polar Urals series, Briffa calculated a new chronology from Yamal – one which had an enormous hockey stick shape. After its publication, in virtually every study, Hockey Team members dropped Polar Urals altogether and substituted Briffa’s Yamal series in its place.
http://www.climateaudit.org/?p=528. PS: The exception to this pattern was Esper et al (Science) 2002, which used the combined Polar Urals data. But Esper refused to provide his data. Steve got it in 2006 after extensive quasi-litigation with Science (over 30 email requests and demands).

3. Subsequently, countless studies appeared from the Team that not only used the Yamal data in place of the Polar Urals, but where Yamal had a critical impact on the relative ranking of the 20th century versus the medieval era.
http://www.climateaudit.org/?p=3099

4. Meanwhile Briffa repeatedly refused to release the Yamal measurement data used inhis calculation despite multiple uses of this series at journals that claimed to require data archiving. E.g. http://www.climateaudit.org/?p=542

5. Then one day Briffa et al. published a paper in 2008 using the Yamal series, again without archiving it. However they published in a Phil Tran Royal Soc journal which has strict data sharing rules. Steve got on the case. http://www.climateaudit.org/?p=3266

6. A short time ago, with the help of the journal editors, the data was pried loose and appeared at the CRU web site. http://www.climateaudit.org/?p=7142

7. It turns out that the late 20th century in the Yamal series has only 10 tree ring chronologies after 1990 (5 after 1995), making it too thin a sample to use (according to conventional rules). But the real problem wasn’t that there were only 5-10 late 20th century cores- there must have been a lot more. They were only using a subset of 10 cores as of 1990, but there was no reason to use a small subset. (Had these been randomly selected, this would be a thin sample, but perhaps passable. But it appears that they weren’t randomly selected.)
http://www.climateaudit.org/?p=7142

8. Faced with a sample in the Taymir chronology that likely had 3-4 times as many series as the Yamal chronology, Briffa added in data from other researchers’ samples taken at the Avam site, some 400 km away. He also used data from the Schweingruber sampling program circa 1990, also taken about 400 km from Taymir. Regardless of the merits or otherwise of pooling samples from such disparate locations, this establishes a precedent where Briffa added a Schweingruber site to provide additional samples. This, incidentally, ramped up the hockey-stickness of the (now Avam-) Taymir chronology.
http://www.climateaudit.org/?p=7158

9. Steve thus looked for data from other samples at or near the Yamal site that could have been used to increase the sample size in the Briffa Yamal chronology. He quickly discovered a large set of 34 Schweingruber samples from living trees. Using these instead of the 12 trees in the Briffa (CRU) group that extend to the present yields Figure 2, showing a complete divergence in the 20th century. Thus the Schweingruber data completely contradicts the CRU series. Bear in mind the close collaboration of Schweingruber and Briffa all this time, and their habit of using one another’s data as needed.

10. Combining the CRU and Schweingruber data yields the green line in the 3rd figure above. While it doesn’t go down at the end, neither does it go up, and it yields a medieval era warmer than the present, on the standard interpretation. Thus the key ingredient in a lot of the studies that have been invoked to support the Hockey Stick, namely the Briffa Yamal series (red line above) depends on the influence of a thin subsample of post-1990 chronologies and the exclusion of the (much larger) collection of readily-available Schweingruber data for the same area.

More HERE

Posted by John Ray (M.A.; Ph.D.). For a daily critique of Leftist activities, see DISSECTING LEFTISM. To keep up with attacks on free speech see TONGUE-TIED. Also, don't forget your daily roundup of pro-environment but anti-Greenie news and commentary at GREENIE WATCH . Email me (John Ray) here

Proof conclusive that Obama is a robot

Just watch the smile

Barack Obama's amazingly consistent smile from Eric Spiegelman on Vimeo.


Posted by John Ray (M.A.; Ph.D.). For a daily critique of Leftist activities, see DISSECTING LEFTISM. To keep up with attacks on free speech see TONGUE-TIED. Also, don't forget your daily roundup of pro-environment but anti-Greenie news and commentary at GREENIE WATCH . Email me (John Ray) here

In Afghanistan, let U.S. troops be warriors

There was an international uproar when, on Sept. 4, in Afghanistan's Kunduz province, an American fighter jet under NATO command bombed a group of Taliban fighters who had hijacked two fuel tanker trucks. The trucks exploded, the fighters were killed, and so were a still-undetermined number of Afghan civilians.

The civilian deaths sent shudders through the American military command, already fearful that civilian casualties would further alienate the Afghan public. Army Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the top American commander in Afghanistan, was said to be angry and determined to tighten the U.S. force's already-strict rules of engagement even more to avoid future civilian deaths.

Then something odd happened. When McChrystal met with local leaders in Kunduz, a few days after the bombing, he got an earful -- but not what he expected.

According to a detailed account in The Washington Post -- a story that has received too little attention in the ongoing debate over U.S. policy in Afghanistan -- the local Afghan leaders told McChrystal to stop being so fussy and to go ahead and kill the enemy, which they said would help bring stability to the region.

Post reporter Rajiv Chandrasekaran was given extraordinary access to the bombing investigation. According to his account, McChrystal began the meeting with a show of sympathy for those who had been killed or wounded. The general didn't get very far before he was interrupted by the provincial council chairman, Ahmadullah Wardak.

The security situation has been getting worse in Kunduz, Wardak told McChrystal. American and NATO troops haven't been aggressive enough in pursuing and killing the Taliban. In Wardak's view, the bombing of the fuel tankers, rather than a mistake, was the right thing to do.

"If we do three more operations like was done the other night, stability will come to Kunduz," Wardak said, according to the Post account. "If people do not want to live in peace and harmony, that's not our fault."

Chandrasekaran reported that McChrystal "seemed caught off guard." Wardak clarified a bit more: "We've been too nice to the thugs," he said.

More HERE

Posted by John Ray (M.A.; Ph.D.). For a daily critique of Leftist activities, see DISSECTING LEFTISM. To keep up with attacks on free speech see TONGUE-TIED. Also, don't forget your daily roundup of pro-environment but anti-Greenie news and commentary at GREENIE WATCH . Email me (John Ray) here

Homosexuals want to impose themselves on churches

Laws that are already oppressive are not oppressive enough for them

GAY rights advocates have criticised slated changes to Victoria's equal opportunity laws that will continue to allow religious organisations to discriminate against gays and single parents.

State Attorney-General Rob Hulls said a new Equal Opportunity Bill will be introduced into parliament next year. Under the changes, religious groups will no longer be able to discriminate on the grounds of race, disability, age, physical features, political belief or breastfeeding. But they can continue to discriminate on grounds including sexuality or marital status if it is in accordance with their beliefs.

Tasmanian Gay and Lesbian Rights Group spokesman Rodney Croome says the right to employment and education is more important than pandering to religious prejudice. "Too often this issue is seen as gay rights versus religious freedom when, in fact, it is about the right to a job you're qualified for, to attend the school of your choosing and to receive essential services," he said.

Australian Christian Lobby director Rob Ward said some of the options canvassed as part of a review of exemptions to the Equal Opportunity Act, had they been implemented, would have had serious repercussions for churches, religious schools and church-related organisations. "Faith-based groups throughout Victoria have been united in their strong concern about a number of the options being looked at as they would have undermined the very core of these bodies by preventing them from upholding their beliefs in terms of who they employ and, therefore, how they operate," he said. "It is good to see the Victorian Government respecting those concerns and the basic right to religious freedom in this state."

Victorian Equal Opportunity and Human Rights Commission chief executive Helen Szoke said the proposed revamp of the law was a positive step towards a better balance between religious freedom and anti-discrimination. She said she was pleased religious bodies would soon have to demonstrate how employing someone of a particular religion is an inherent requirement of a job. "Religious schools or religious charities, for example, will have to show how belonging to a particular religion is relevant to the job they are trying to fill," Dr Szoke said. "In the case of religious education teachers or chaplains, this will be clear. However, in the case of office staff or the maths teacher it will need to be made explicit how religion is relevant to the job."

SOURCE

Posted by John Ray (M.A.; Ph.D.). For a daily critique of Leftist activities, see DISSECTING LEFTISM. To keep up with attacks on free speech see TONGUE-TIED. Also, don't forget your daily roundup of pro-environment but anti-Greenie news and commentary at GREENIE WATCH . Email me (John Ray) here

Another lot of Warmist nonsense debunked

The medieval warm period is vastly inconvenient to Warmists and they try on occasions to erase it from their data summaries. But it is not going away so their next line of defence is to say it was a Northern hemisphere event only. That was always pretty absurd (and raised more questions than it answered) but the study reported below gives it another kick in the pants by showing that the Northern and Southern hemisphere climates move in tandem. See also here and here.

Two of the most important questions in paleoclimatology are, how are the climates of the Northern and Southern Hemispheres linked, and what are the roles of the high latitudes and the tropics in driving and transmitting climate changes? Past investigations have concentrated on the study of large, rapid climate changes like deglaciations or the Younger Dryas because they are the easiest ones to see and to date. Licciardi et al. (p. 1677) expand the scope of these investigations by determining precise cosmogenic isotope ages for glacial moraines formed in the Peruvian Andes during the Holocene (the last 11,000 years). The precision of these data reveals a broad correlation between Peruvian glacial advances and climate in the North Atlantic region, revealing important climate linkages between the tropics and higher latitudes.

SOURCE

Journal abstract follows:

Holocene Glacier Fluctuations in the Peruvian Andes Indicate Northern Climate Linkages

By Joseph M. Licciardi et al.

The role of the tropics in triggering, transmitting, and amplifying interhemispheric climate signals remains a key debate in paleoclimatology. Tropical glacier fluctuations provide important insight on regional paleoclimatic trends and forcings, but robust chronologies are scarce. Here, we report precise moraine ages from the Cordillera Vilcabamba (13°20'S) of southern Peru that indicate prominent glacial events and associated climatic shifts in the outer tropics during the early Holocene and late in the "Little Ice Age" period. Our glacier chronologies differ from the New Zealand record but are broadly correlative with well-dated glacial records in Europe, suggesting climate linkages between the tropics and the North Atlantic region.

Science 25 September 2009: Vol. 325. no. 5948, pp. 1677 - 1679

Posted by John Ray (M.A.; Ph.D.). For a daily critique of Leftist activities, see DISSECTING LEFTISM. To keep up with attacks on free speech see TONGUE-TIED. Also, don't forget your daily roundup of pro-environment but anti-Greenie news and commentary at GREENIE WATCH . Email me (John Ray) here

Sooner or later you will face the death panel

News.com.au - DYING cancer patients could be weaned off taxpayer-funded drugs as the Federal Government is confronted with spiralling health costs. Health Minister Nicola Roxon wants debate about the moral challenge as the Pharmaceutical Benefits Advisory Committee plans trials to determine when costly drugs become ineffective and should no longer be dispensed. ......Prof Sansom said more information was needed. "We need trials to be done ... to address any advantages in continuing with drugs when the patient (cancer) has progressed. If there is any benefit," he said.

The Australian Medical Association vice-president Steve Hambleton said the issue was sensitive and some doctors had trouble saying "no" to patients. "If you're on your last legs, there's no point in having expensive chemotherapy if there's no clinical benefits," Dr Hambleton said. But apart from cancer drugs - which can cost taxpayers up to $50,000 a patient - Ms Roxon is asking why doctors dispense expensive, subsidised drugs to patients when cheaper generics are prescribed.
You can call it a death-panel, you can call it the cost-curbing-office, even the office of medical efficiency and better health outcomes or something that doesn't allude to the real purpose. But the reality will be that no matter what you call it or how it's done, it'll still be your ass on a bed somewhere dying of cancer and other people, not you or your family, will sit around a table and deliberate over your life. You know, Tom here has had a good innings, he's had a good life but he hasn't worked for the last 15 years, essentially he's a largely useless parasite, it'll just be a waste of money, just tell em' nothing can be done and move on.

It can be cold and callous like that or they can pass the tissue box around the table and say, oh this is just terrible, poor Sarah, I don't know what can be done, how can we make things better, it's such a shame, she's so polite and never complains, look at all those grand children, but if we don't give her those expensive drugs we can fund that new machine for premature babies. They can deliberate for a few hours and try to make things more comfortable and make it sound better and all that, but it's really the same thing, with socialized medicine your life is essentially in the hands of those whose eye is on the budget, not you.

Just the other day, I saw a report about an old lady who died in hospital because she contracted an infection from her own urine that they left her in. The nursing staff didn't bother to clean her or change the sheets or anything. Terribly sad but what makes it even worse is the usual inquiries called for and demands that this never happen again. It happens every other week, story after story, some hospital is shamed, the relevant minister calls an inquiry and promises this will never happen again and blah, blah. A week or so later, the tape is replayed at a different hospital and yet we still won't get it.

When an obama tells you that he won't ration care, that you won't be facing a death-panel of some sort, he is lying, you lie Mr President! Expecting socialized medicine not to ration care and consider letting you die for the 'greater' good is like seeing a giant power pole in front of you and walking/running directly towards it and expecting not to walk/run into it.

Brawl involving 200 NON-AFRICAN youths erupts at Melbourne shopping centre

Wow! The embargo on race being mentioned is lifted for once. But only because the offenders were not African this time. Easy to see what we should conclude when race is not mentioned. Around 2006/2007 it was not uncommon for troublemakers in Melbourne to be identified as African but after that an iron curtain on such mentions seems to have come down. Were we supposed to conclude that Africans in Melbourne had suddenly abandoned the very high tendency to criminality that they exhibit in every country in the world where they are found?

GANG violence erupted at a western suburbs shopping centre, with one youth stabbed repeatedly in the chest. The brawl, involving up to 200 teenagers, was only dispersed when police arrived at Aquatic Drive at Highpoint Shopping Centre in Maribyrnong shortly after 4pm yesterday. One boy, 15, was stabbed three times and taken to the Royal Melbourne Hospital. Police were attempting to interview him last night.

The majority of those involved were Pacific Islander and Asian youths, but the cause of the affray is still unknown. Police found knives, sticks and umbrellas at the scene where youths aged between 13 and 15 ran from the scene. Between 40 and 50 people were spoken to by police, who are now searching for CCTV footage.

Acting Sergeant Jacob Bugeja, of Footscray police branch, said fights in the carpark were common. "I'd say it's got something to do with an ongoing school battle,'' he said. "The fact they were all a similar age is an indication of that.''

Sgt Bugeja said they were called to the area every six weeks, but he had not seen as many youths congregating before. The injured teen is in a stable condition.

A similar-sized brawl at Highpoint in October 2007 involved African youths from the Flemington high-rise flats. On that occasion there were in fact two brawls, one inside a cinema and the other in the shopping centre, which had to be shut down. Police arrested and charged several youths.

SOURCE

Posted by John Ray (M.A.; Ph.D.). For a daily critique of Leftist activities, see DISSECTING LEFTISM. To keep up with attacks on free speech see TONGUE-TIED. Also, don't forget your daily roundup of pro-environment but anti-Greenie news and commentary at GREENIE WATCH . Email me (John Ray) here

Must not satirize Australian blacks

The usual slang term for Aborigines in Australia is "boong" (with "oo" pronounced as in "look") but I gather that "noonga" must be a variant used in Western Australia. "Boong" is just as derogatory as "n*gger" in the USA but does not evoke the sort of hysteria often seen in the USA. Somebody seems to have pushed it a bit too far, however.

"A website set up by a Perth student about a fictional Aboriginal character has been shut down and is being investigated by police amid racism claims.

The website, which Radio 6PR reports was created by a 19-year-old Curtin University student, features audio excerpts of a character called "Nigel the crazy Noonga", who prank calls businesses and fast-food outlets with a fake Aboriginal accent.

The portrayal of negative Aboriginal stereotypes has sparked outrage from the Aboriginal community. Craig Somerville, lecturer at the Curtin University Centre for Aboriginal Studies, told 6PR he believed the material on the website had crossed the line between humour and racism.

Despite the website being shut down, the fictional Aboriginal character can still found on the internet with a dedicated YouTube channel and profiles on MySpace and Facebook.

The Facebook "Just for fun" group set up for "Nigel the crazy Noonga" has 317 members and describes "Nigel" as "your friendly neighbourhood Noonga". It also pokes fun at the character's fictional solvent abuse, describing it as his own personal "dreamtime".

Sergeant Greg Lambert said police were aware of the website and were investigating.

Source

I doubt that any law was broken. The State of Victoria is the one with draconian speech laws.

Posted by John Ray (M.A.; Ph.D.). For a daily critique of Leftist activities, see DISSECTING LEFTISM. To keep up with attacks on free speech see TONGUE-TIED. Also, don't forget your daily roundup of pro-environment but anti-Greenie news and commentary at GREENIE WATCH . Email me (John Ray) here

Sydney's huge dust storm caused by global warming?



You knew that somebody would say it was, didn't you? They knew that they had scant grounds for saying so but some in the media did. Even the guy below -- who knows what really caused it -- can't quite resist the temptation. He also leaves out a lot: like the fact that Northern and Western Australia have had exceptionally good rains recently. And even the drier Southeast (where Melbourne is) that he talks about actually got rain during the Sydney dust storm! It is utter rubbish to claim that Australia as a whole is getting drier. The rains have tended to move North but have certainly not vanished. Quite to the contrary. Most dams in Queensland are full to overflowing. And the Southeast has suffered that way before. In 1901, the mighty Murray river was just a chain of waterholes. Pesky how awkward the whole truth is!

Australia is the driest inhabited continent in the world and dust storms are fairly common — but only occasionally does the dust reach the coast, and yesterday’s storm was probably the biggest to hit Sydney for 60 years. In fact, this year has been exceptionally violent, with freak weather disasters hitting at bewildering speed every month.

Most bizarrely, this winter (June, July and August) was the hottest on record, and followed desperately dry months, with the lowest rainfall on record in Melbourne. Much of the blame for this can be pinned on an El Niño brewing in the Pacific, as the tropical seas there grow unusually warm and bring heavy rains to South America but leave eastern Australia in drought.

It is no surprise that some of the biggest dust storms in Australia’s history have come in El Niño years — and more dust storms could hit this year.

The storms are an ecological disaster, ripping up valuable topsoil from farmland. But a far greater threat is that much of Australia has been in its worst drought for several years, which has crippled its most prosperous farmland in the Murray-Darling Basin, in the southeast of the country.

This severe drought is difficult to explain simply from natural fluctuations in climate. Instead, Australians are now facing the brutal truth that theirs is largely a hot, dry country that is turning even hotter and drier — and that this is most probably caused by unnatural changes in the climate.

SOURCE

Posted by John Ray (M.A.; Ph.D.). For a daily critique of Leftist activities, see DISSECTING LEFTISM. To keep up with attacks on free speech see TONGUE-TIED. Also, don't forget your daily roundup of pro-environment but anti-Greenie news and commentary at GREENIE WATCH . Email me (John Ray) here

Indoctrination



This is something out of North Korea or Iran.
It is socialist indoctrination.
...nope, it's flat-out brain-washing of children.
What else CAN you call this shit?

Other than barking madness.

Welcome to the New American Socialist Theology.

Nearly 100 "asylum-seekers" on latest boat

These are nearly always Afghans and the scandal is that the Feds take the "asylum-seeker" claim seriously. They had asylum as soon as they reached Pakistan, where there are now millions of Afghans living. These guys are the rich ones who could afford an airline flight to Indonesia and then pay thousands of dollars to people smugglers. They are no more refugees than my big toe is. They are economic migrants sneaking in the back door. Their low levels of literacy and other skills would not normally qualify them as acceptable migrants

AN Australian navy patrol vessel has intercepted a boat carrying 98 suspected asylum-seekers off Australia's north-west coast. The vessel was initially detected about 2am (AEST) today before it was intercepted after it entered Australian waters.

Home Affairs Minister Brendan O'Connor said HMAS Glenelg, operating under the control of Border Protection Command, intercepted the vessel at 5am (AEST) north-west of Christmas Island. The group will be transferred to Christmas Island where they will undergo security, identity and health checks as well as establish their reasons for travel.

More than 1400 people have arrived on 26 unauthorised boats so far this year, with the latest arrival taking the number of boat arrivals in the past two weeks to seven.

The arrivals have sparked a political row in Canberra, where the Opposition has accused the Government of going soft on border protection.

SOURCE

A conservatism hater

David Greenberg, a professor of history at Rutgers, has a very self-satisfied and sneering essay in Slate which admits his failure to understand conservatism at great length. Apparently inspired by the latest "Time" magazine, he dredges up the old Marxist nonsense of Hofstader, Adorno & Co. and seems to think that there is something in it, but ends up admitting that none of them give a useful explanation of modern-day American conservative politics. Rather amusing really.

It is difficult to fisk something as lightweight as Greenberg's essay but maybe I should make two points:

In typical Leftist style, he projects onto conservatives the very thing that most moves Leftists: Hate. The title of his essay is "The Obama haters". That people might violently disagree with Obama's policies without hating him seems to be a combination outside Greenberg's limited emotional range. Again in good Leftist style he offers no evidence that ANYBODY hates Obama. He just asserts it. He KNOWS! Obama is personally a very agreeable personality so I find it hard to imagine that anyone hates him. Obama's extremely limited understanding of economics (e.g. his claim that he can give healthcare to more people with less money) does reduce one to despair at times, but despair is a long way from hate.

But I suppose the main defence mechanism that keeps Greenberg's sense of superiority alive is not so much projection as denial. He just cannot see that people like Glenn Beck have reasonable points to make: Points reasonable enough to cause at least one Obama appointee to resign. So if the words of Beck & Co. are not reasonable, there must be something other than reason behind them. Frustratingly for Greenberg, he just cannot figure out what that might be. Again, quite amusing.

If Greenberg reads this, he will probably accuse me of "psychologizing" or some such. That would be amusing too as that was precisely what Greenberg tried to do, but could not convince even himself. But I do after all have over 100 papers in the academic literature on the psychology of politics so I probably have a more useful background for "psychologizing" about politics than he does.

Some excerpts that might interest Prof. Greenberg:

Secret protocols of Beck’s legions

Grassroots conservative enthusiasm notwithstanding, the talk-radio host and Fox News personality is under attack this week, with the liberal establishment's favorite weapon, a Time magazine cover: "Mad Man: Glenn Beck and the angry style of American politics." This continues a long tradition of weekly newsmagazine covers demonizing conservative figures like Rush Limbaugh and Newt Gingrich... After a few more paragraphs, Von Drehle plays his trump card: "The old American mind-set that Richard Hofstadter famously called 'the paranoid style' -- the sense that Masons or the railroads or the Pope or the guys in black helicopters are in league to destroy the country -- is aflame again…" Von Drehle's invocation of "the paranoid style," a trope that Hofstadter derived from Theodor Adorno's "authoritarian personality," is intended to clearly signal the reader that Beck is a kook, a conspiracy theorist, a demagogue pandering to the dangerous emotions of the ignorant mob.

Having never met Beck, I am not qualified to speak of whether he is representative of the "paranoid style." However, my friend and fellow American Spectator contributor Matthew Vadum has been a studio guest on Beck's Fox News program and did not mention any "roiling mix of fear, resentment, and anger." If Beck rants off-camera about black helicopters and Masons, it eluded Vadum's notice.

While my acquaintance with Beck is limited to occasionally catching a few moments of his TV or radio shows, I did have the opportunity to speak to many of the people at the Sept. 12 Capitol rally. My Arizona blogger friend Barbara Espinosa was there, and I spent many hours before, during and after the event talking to the organizers, attendees and speakers, including Rep. Mike Pence (R-Ind.) and author Mason Weaver. None of these people seemed to think that Glenn Beck represented a menace to public safety or the conservative movement.

They're all in on it together -- the grandmother and teenagers, Pence and Vadum and Weaver! It's all a clandestine conspiracy to conceal the hidden agenda for global domination by the Secret Legion of Beck! And if you don't believe it, then you're obviously a paranoid kook.

More here.

Why the left hates Glenn Beck : "For the last few years the left and the press would take shots at Beck, but never in a concerted fashion. He simply could be ignored, and they had bigger fish to fry, like the long-reigning king of conservative talk radio, Rush Limbaugh. Things changed when Beck shifted from CNN to Fox News, just in time to comment on the policies of a new Democratic administration. Beck caught fire, both with his commentaries and with his growing fan base. He even took to the road for another comedy tour, blending mainstream humor with his political jabs. A few Beck bestsellers later, and he officially became a media empire. But the talker’s ability to take down his targets changed the dynamics — and the ferocity of the attacks against him.”

Posted by John Ray (M.A.; Ph.D.). For a daily critique of Leftist activities, see DISSECTING LEFTISM. To keep up with attacks on free speech see TONGUE-TIED. Also, don't forget your daily roundup of pro-environment but anti-Greenie news and commentary at GREENIE WATCH . Email me (John Ray) here

ZEG

In his latest offering, conservative Australian cartoonist ZEG is not impressed by Kevin Rudd's poorly-attended speech at the United Nations.

Posted by John Ray (M.A.; Ph.D.).

Rev. Stephen Boissoin In Court Challenging "Hate Speech" Conviction

The report below is from 16th. I have been waiting for a verdict before I commented on it but there has been a deathly silence ever since. Courts do proceed at a very leisurely pace so who knows when we will hear more? Anyway, we are likely to end up seeing here another defeat for the Canadian speech police. They seem to have cracked every time that they have been forcefully challenged so far. On this occasion they are not even defending themselves!

The Court of the Queen's Bench is a fairly senior court in the Canadian system so all the protections of due process that are so spectacularly absent in the "Human Rights" tribunals will be available there.
"Last year Alberta pastor Stephen Boissoin was ordered by the Alberta Human Rights Commission to desist from expressing his views on homosexuality in any sort of public forum, and to pay complainant and homosexual activist Dr. Darren Lund $7,000 in damages.

Today, however, he is in Alberta Court of the Queen's Bench, appealing the conviction of hate speech that resulted in the above penalties. That conviction was based upon a letter to the editor in the Red Deer Advocate, in which Boissoin expressed his opinion that homosexuality is immoral and dangerous, and called into question new gay-rights curricula permeating the province's educational system.

Alliance Defense Fund (ADF) allied attorney Gerald Chipeur has submitted a full legal brief in the precedent-setting appeal. In that appeal Chipeur is seeking a full dismissal of the complaint and conviction on behalf of Boissoin, and the granting of costs incurred by Boissoin in his defense as well as repayment of the indemnity he paid to Lund.

"People of faith should not be fined or jailed for expressing their political or religious beliefs," said Chipeur in an ADF press release. "The ability to express one's conscience is a fundamental human right protected by the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. This pastor cannot be muzzled simply because someone else does not share his viewpoint, and a recent decision from the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal in a national case confirms this."

On Sept. 2, the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal (CHRT) ruled in a separate case that section 13 of the Canadian Human Rights Act, Canada's human rights legislation against hate messages, unreasonably limits the Charter right to freedom of expression. Member Athanasios D. Hadjis issued the ruling in the case of Richard Warman and the Canadian Human Rights Commission (CHRC) against Marc Lemire, operator of the website FreedomSite.org, who was the subject of a complaint brought by serial complainant and former CHRC employee Richard Warman in November 2003.

The Calgary Herald reports that the Alberta Human Rights Commission, which sanctioned and fined Mr. Boissoin, has declined to participate in the Court of Queen's Bench trial at which the constitutionality of its ruling will be debated, and that both the Canadian Civil Liberties Association and the Canadian Constitution Foundation will appear as interveners on Boissoin's behalf.

Source


Posted by John Ray (M.A.; Ph.D.). For a daily critique of Leftist activities, see DISSECTING LEFTISM. To keep up with attacks on free speech see TONGUE-TIED. Also, don't forget your daily roundup of pro-environment but anti-Greenie news and commentary at GREENIE WATCH . Email me (John Ray) here

HAVING IT BOTH WAYS: BOTH DROUGHT AND FLOOD PROVE GLOBAL WARMING

"Climate change is here, it is a reality", reports John Vidal. As one devastating drought follows another, the future is bleak for millions in east Africa, he writes. Describing the pitiful scenes, he recounts how, after three years of disastrous rains, the families from the Borana tribe, who by custom travel thousands of miles a year in search of water and pasture, have unanimously decided to settle down.

Back in April, they packed up their pots, pans and meagre belongings, deserted their mud and thatch homes at Bute and set off on their last trek, to Yaeblo, a village of near-destitute charcoal makers that has sprung up on the side of a dirt road near Moyale. Now they live in temporary "benders" – shelters made from branches covered with plastic sheeting. They look like survivors from an earthquake or a flood, says Vidal, but in fact these are some of the world's first climate-change refugees.

Meanwhile, the UN is telling us that, three weeks after Burkina Faso, in West Africa , was hit by devastating floods, people in the worst-affected areas are struggling to get back to normal. Eight people died when heavy rains swept through Burkina Faso in early September. It was the heaviest rainfall in 90 years. Earlier this month, the same UN announced that heavy flooding had affected some 350,000 people across West Africa, killing at least 32 in Ghana and Burkina Faso.

Fortunately, help is at hand. Yesterday, the Church of England launched a "climate justice fund". It will, the earnest clerics tell us, support Anglican dioceses in Africa to respond to disasters caused by climate change, such as flooding.

Never mind the contradiction – the BBC has it sussed. Noting that West Africa has been hit by floods while the east of the continent is suffering from a drought, it airily informs us that "analysts say" that these "twin battles" will become more common as a result of climate change. Come rain or shine, hot or cold, windy or calm ... there is only one cause.

SOURCE

Posted by John Ray (M.A.; Ph.D.). For a daily critique of Leftist activities, see DISSECTING LEFTISM. To keep up with attacks on free speech see TONGUE-TIED. Also, don't forget your daily roundup of pro-environment but anti-Greenie news and commentary at GREENIE WATCH . Email me (John Ray) here

ZEG

In his latest offering, conservative Australian cartoonist ZEG is incensed that the NSW government gave no warning of the big dust storm or any advice on what to do about it.

Posted by John Ray (M.A.; Ph.D.).

al Rassooli - Bible & Quran Part 186 B



Thanks to al Rassooli's "AhmadsQuran3".

al Rassooli - Bible & Quran Part 186 A



Thanks to al Rassooli's "AhmadsQuran3".

The antidemocratic Left

Voting is undemocratic, apparently. Sort that one out! Leftist Doublespeak again


Smart people should rule the world. That, anyway, is what certain folks who consider themselves far smarter than you or me tend to think. These clever souls hang out with other brainy people, all of whom are very impressed with the intelligence they find around themselves — at places, say, like the Northwest Progressive Institute.

Yes, for the good of everyone, they must rule. Without such leadership, after all, how would the little people — those of us less brilliant, less progressive — know precisely how much revenue, how much of “our common wealth,” should be obtained by state government through taxes and then spent on various programs?


You ask: What programs? Programs these really smart people think up, of course. But, if you live in Washington state and favor the work of the “strategy center,” The Northwest Progressive Institute, you have a problem. A roadblock. A hurdle. A very large brick wall. His name is Tim Eyman.

Mr. Eyman is the state’s “initiative king,” meaning there are necessarily millions of accessories to his evil plots: Washington voters. Eyman, along with several hundred thousand of these voters signing petitions, placed Initiative 1033 on the ballot . . . to be decided, in roughly six weeks, by the state’s unwashed masses. The measure, if passed, would cap the year-to-year growth of state spending to the growth of population and inflation, allowing the caps to be overridden only with express approval from these same plebes.

But this democracy idea doesn’t sit so well with Andrew Villeneuve, who tells us on the Northwest Progressive Institute’s blog that “I-1033 is the boldest assault yet in Tim Eyman’s war on representative democracy.” Villeneuve believes permitting mere citizens to occasionally vote directly on taxes and spending, on economic policies, is somehow illegitimate — and destructive of the delicate brain surgery done by legislatures.

Oh, he freely admits that the first Americans to raise the banner of Progressivism brought us initiative, referendum and recall. But many of today’s self-described progressives now say “thanks, but no thanks” to the idea of empowering the actual people on the receiving and funding ends of government. The little guy has apparently outworn his welcome.

Everyman (or -woman) might not vote the right way — that is, the “left” way. Thus, all decisions must be made by special-interest barnacled politicians. Otherwise, disaster lurks. “If all public services were dependent on voter approval to exist year to year, Washington would not even be a State,” claims the hyperbolic Villeneuve. “Our beautiful corner of America would be known as The Evergreen Chaos.” Such Chicken Little statements have little to do with the reality of Eyman’s proposal. I-1033 will not require any program to be re-upped by voters yearly.

More troubling, though, is Mr. Villeneuve complete lack of faith in the voters. Villeneuve is mistaken on the merits of I-1033, but he is dangerously unbalanced in arguing against the right of the people to check the actions of their government through initiative and referendum. “The initiative and referendum were not intended to replace the Legislature,” he says. But of course, legislators aren’t being replaced, merely overruled. By their bosses.

James Madison, an authority on republican values at least on par with Mr. Villeneuve, wrote in Federalist 49: "As the people are the only legitimate fountain of power, and it is from them that the constitutional charter, under which the several branches of government hold their power, is derived, it seems strictly consonant to the republican theory to recur to the same original authority . . ."

In his online rant, Villeneuve turns to a different source: “Even those who argue that representative democracy is flawed cannot disagree with Winston Churchill’s famous conclusion that it ’is the worst form of government except all the others that have been tried.’” Funny how Villeneuve edited Churchill. Britain’s prime minister did not use the term “representative democracy” at all. He actually said, “No one pretends that democracy is perfect or all-wise. Indeed, it has been said that democracy is the worst form of Government except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.”

In 1944, Churchill also said this about the lowly voter: “At the bottom of all the tributes paid to democracy is the little man, walking into the little booth, with a little pencil, making a little cross on a little bit of paper — no amount of rhetoric or voluminous discussion can possibly diminish the overwhelming importance of that point.”

Villeneuve’s last refuge is to denounce the entire concept of voter initiatives for one additional reason. “Every time we the people of Washington State are forced to vote on Tim Eyman’s measures, it costs each of us a pretty penny,” he writes. “Eyman seems to have forgotten that holding elections — like every other public service the government provides — carry a price tag.” Oh, sure, democracy is nice and all, but it costs too much. Perhaps a king would be cheaper?

SOURCE

Posted by John Ray (M.A.; Ph.D.). For a daily critique of Leftist activities, see DISSECTING LEFTISM. To keep up with attacks on free speech see TONGUE-TIED. Also, don't forget your daily roundup of pro-environment but anti-Greenie news and commentary at GREENIE WATCH . Email me (John Ray) here

Health insurer not entitled to free political speech??

The Obama healthcare proposals are clearly a hot political issue so why should ANYONE be prevented from giving their opinion of what is proposed? It sounds to me like the insurer was warning of an attack on a program that IS under attack. Saying that the criticism is "misleading" is standard Democrat boilerplate at the moment. They call ALL criticism misleading. And if all misleading political speech were banned, a lot of Democrats would be struck dumb. It would not be worthwhile for Joe Biden even to get out of bed. Joe assured us that FDR went on TV to make his case -- even though there was no TV for him to go on in that early era! And who the heck is Joe Biden? He's only the Vice President of the United States.
"The government is investigating a major insurance company for allegedly trying to scare seniors with a mailer warning they could lose important benefits under health care legislation in Congress. The Health and Human Services Department launched its investigation of Humana after getting a complaint from Sen. Max Baucus, D-Mont., a senior lawmaker usually viewed as a reliable ally of the insurance industry.

"It is wholly unacceptable for insurance companies to mislead seniors regarding any subject — particularly on a subject as important to them, and to the nation, as health care reform," Baucus said Monday, disclosing the HHS investigation.

Humana Inc., headquartered in Louisville, Ky., is cooperating with the investigation and stopped the mailer earlier this month, company spokesman Tom Noland said Monday.

Humana is one of the largest private carriers serving seniors under a program called Medicare Advantage. About one-fourth of the elderly and disabled people covered under Medicare participate in the Advantage program, which offers a choice of private plans that usually deliver added benefits. Humana has about 1.4 million Medicare Advantage enrollees, and the program accounts for about half the company's revenue, Noland said.

Government experts say the private plans are being paid too much — about 14 percent more than it costs to care for seniors in traditional Medicare. The Baucus plan — and other proposals — would reduce payments to the plans, and the health insurance industry is fighting back. The Humana mailer focused squarely on the Medicare Advantage program.

Source


Posted by John Ray (M.A.; Ph.D.). For a daily critique of Leftist activities, see DISSECTING LEFTISM. To keep up with attacks on free speech see TONGUE-TIED. Also, don't forget your daily roundup of pro-environment but anti-Greenie news and commentary at GREENIE WATCH . Email me (John Ray) here

Another overseas doctor disaster at a government hospital

Under quite inexcusable circumstances. Government hospitals will take anyone and turn a blind eye if they need to. Have YOU got private health insurance? I am glad that I do

AN IRAQI-trained heart surgeon has reportedly had his contract terminated by Sir Charles Gairdner Hospital after concerns about the standard of his work. Channel Nine journalist Dixie Marshall has revealed that SCGH had employed a Fremantle Hospital surgeon to review patient files belonging to Dr Jaffar Shehatha, who had been suspended from conducting surgery at the hospital since February.

In July, The Sunday Times reporter Anthony DeCeglie revealed that a top surgeon at SCGH claimed two doctors were conducting critical surgery without proper qualifications. In an article titled "Doctors in ops dispute", De Cegelie revealed that cardiothoracic surgeon John Manuel Alvarez lodged an internal complaint in which he claimed that last year he warned SCGH bosses that he feared two of his peers were under-qualified for the major surgery they were performing. At the time, The Sunday Times understood that some of the concerns related to whether or not the two doctors had passed specialist examinations.

An SCGH spokeswoman confirmed that Dr Alvarez had made complaints about the quality of some of his peers who were conducting critical surgery last year.

This morning, Marshall said that it was understood the investigation found significent deficiencies in the work of Dr Shehatha, who trained at the University of Baghdad and became a surgeon at SCGH in July 2008. According to Marshall, Dr Shehatha was meant to spend two years in the Royal Perth Hospital's training program but was asked to leave after one year because RPH surgeons believed he could not be trained.

SOURCE

Posted by John Ray (M.A.; Ph.D.). For a daily critique of Leftist activities, see DISSECTING LEFTISM. To keep up with attacks on free speech see TONGUE-TIED. Also, don't forget your daily roundup of pro-environment but anti-Greenie news and commentary at GREENIE WATCH . Email me (John Ray) here

Rewarding bad behavior

Daily Mail - Motorists should be made legally responsible for all accidents involving cyclists, even if they are not at fault, say Government advisers. ......It comes after ministers suggested allowing cyclists to ride the wrong way down one-way streets in an attempt to encourage more people to switch to two wheels. The proposal by Cycling England is modelled on regulations in the Netherlands, Denmark, and Germany, which are heavily skewed in favour of cyclists. Even in cases where a crash results from illegal or dangerous manoeuvres by the cyclist, the motorist is usually blamed.
So let me get this straight, a lot of cyclists on our roads behave like a**holes, holding up traffic, running red lights and generally doing whatever the heck they feel like on our roads. Most normal human beings would look at such a situation and say, well they're behaving badly so we should punish them in some way, more police, traffic fines, that sort of thing. But no folks, we're talking the leftist government of Britain here, not ordinary fools like you and I.

You see these brainiacs figure that to get rid of bad behavior or to encourage a certain behavior, you have to reward & encourage people to be a**holes. Think about it, if you tell a cyclist who is being an a**hole on the road that from now on it'll never be his fault, do you think that he'll try and stop being an a**hole, obviously not. Perhaps in this case, leftists hatred of motor cars blinds them to the stupidity of their proposal. Moving on.
Daily Mail- Here, in the second part of a fascinating series, she reveals her chilling findings - and exposes how the benefit system is breeding boys condemned to a life of crime and despair because they've never known the benefit of a loving family. . . When Prince opens his front door, the first thing you see is a machete hanging from a hook on the inside. As a drug-dealer living alone on a South London estate, he needs to be on guard.

......Yet Prince, who is of black Caribbean origin, has five children - by three different mothers - and sees them all regularly. So why did these women choose to have babies by a man they barely knew? Prince, who is 37, laid the blame squarely on benefits: 'Women get money from the Government; men get eradicated. What do you need a man for? The Government has taken our place.
For years and years, leftists and progressives have held single-motherhood and welfare as some sort of aspirational goal and basic human right. For years and years, we've seen that single-parent children are more likely to become criminals, stuck on welfare or some sort of useless parasite on society. But that never makes any difference to 'progressives', it's still full steam ahead with shoving fathers out of the way, throwing more welfare money at them, undermining the family unit and who can forget, more sex education delivered at an even younger age now.

But the rewarding and encouraging of bad behavior doesn't end there.
Daily Mail - Ben and Sharon Vogelenzang are being prosecuted under controversial public order laws designed to target yobbish and abusive behaviour on the streets. ......The charges relate to a heated conversation the couple had with the guest at their hotel in Liverpool in March. On her final morning before checking out, she came down to breakfast wearing a hijab, the traditional Muslim headdress. ......It is alleged they suggested that Mohammad, the founder of Islam, was a warlord when the guest challenged them about their Christian beliefs.

The woman also claims that the couple, who vehemently deny the allegations and say they were simply defending their faith, described her traditional dress as a form of bondage. The guest complained to police and the Vogelenzangs were charged with using 'threatening, abusive or insulting words' which were ' religiously aggravated'. The hospital where she was treated routinely referred outpatients to stay at the hotel. But when management found out about the court case they decided they could no longer recommend the Bounty House, leading to the catastrophic drop in bookings.
These poor people have now been forced to put their business up for sale, thanks to the unknown muslim. The hospital didn't bother to wait for the court case to be heard and a verdict handed down, they didn't bother to hear the side of the hotel owners either, they didn't care about the Christians rights. No, no, a muslim has been offended, all fall to the ground and slither around chanting 'allah akbar', islam is great. The other thing is that, can you believe such a law even exists in a western country, you cannot even defend your faith against a muslim anymore, what happened to free speech, what happened to property rights! Dream on infidel, a muslim has been offend, ass-kissing to commence in 4,3,2,1.... pucker up infidel scum!

Heck now that I think about it, you might not even say anything, for all you know, you and your infidel whore can stand there and tell the muslim, mohammed is a wonderful fellow, islam is great, etc. And all the muslim has to do is head to the nearest police station, demand that a female officer attend to her needs and remain standing to take notes and just lie through their teeth about the mean, nasty crusader and his bitch-wife wearing the Christian cross and that's it for you chump. Here's your court date and you can kiss your life good bye.

Anyone stupid enough to think that rewarding, appeasing and accommodating such behavior will not lead to more and more of it?

More Leftist lies. They NEED to lie. The truth is toxic to them

Doug Giles, a proud father, has produced a daughter who is a chip off the old block and he rebuts below the lies being told about the ACORN sting. Their near-total disregard for the truth has always identified the Left as sub-clinical psychopaths (See here and here) to anyone who is familiar with psychopaths but the total emptiness where ethics and morality should be in the heads of the ACORN staffers is a vivid reminder of how psychopathic Leftists really are -- for those who have forgotten Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot and all that merry crew. Destruction is all that the Left are devoted to and they do as much of it as the power available to them allows

The heading Doug Giles put on his account below was: "No, It Wasn’t My Idea for Hannah Giles to Dress Like a Hooker and Infiltrate ACORN"
It’s been quite interesting watching and reading the statements coming from ACORN and various “news” organizations about the “facts” of the Giles/O’Keefe ACORN caper. Here’s a little sample of what they have been saying about the two evil citizen journalists, Hannah Giles and James O’Keefe, the ones who picked on poor, poor, poor, old ACORN.

Check it out, the truth according to nutty ACORN (and what really happened):

1. Giles’ and O’Keefe’s timeframe for filming. Bertha Lewis and others have stated that Hannah and James spent many months visiting scores of ACORN centers to get these few videos. One wizard said Hannah and James had been doing this since 2005, which would have made Hannah, oh, let’s see, about 14 or 15. Hello! I’m a cool dad—but not that cool.

I guess Bertha could be right about the time Giles and O’Keefe invested in the ACORN sting op if she counts her days in dog years. If that’s how she rolls then she’s spot-on with the “many months” statement. By the way, if that’s true, this November I’ll be 329 years old. Happy birthday to me! I think I’ll get another gun! I’m diggin’ on the S&W .500 magnum. She’s purty.

The truth of the matter, from a timeline standpoint, is that they hatched their plan in May of ’09, fine-tuned it from May 20th – July 23rd, and then launched July 24th, fully accomplishing their mission by the end of August. And that’s a fact to all those for whom facts still matter.

2. Giles’ and O’Keefe’s mission failed in many locations. Bertha and her buddies say with vigor and Reverend Wright unction that Giles and O’Keefe tried this trick in hundreds of locations without success. Marc Lamont Hill was on O’Reilly’s show this past week parroting the same smack. I heard one lunatic say they visited thousands of centers nationwide (there are under 200. Oops). Hey, guys: Why stop at hundreds and thousands? Why not say gazillions or quadrillions of ACORN centers?! Go Dr. Evil with the numbers. The truth of the matter happens to be that Hannah and James visited just a few locations—I won’t say how many—and struck gold, or sewage, everywhere they went.

3. Giles and O’Keefe had FOX News bankroll this escapade. I believe that, according to the ACORN spinmeisters, they had the amount of drachmas FOX had given Hannah and James in the hundreds of millions of dollars. The oh-so-sexy reality regarding this little nugget is that it cost these two acorn-crackers $1,300 of their own money. It’s amazing what one can do with a little cash, grandma’s chinchilla coat, a miniskirt and a whole lot of vision, eh? The only cash they received from FOX was for their hotel stay and their airfare while they did Beck’s and Hannity’s shows. That’s the truth. Oh, and as far as me giving her any pesos, for this epoch her papasito gave her nada. Not a penny. No FOX funds. No crazy Christian dad dollars.

4. Giles’ radical, ultra-conservative Christian dad put her up to it. I believe that’s how someone on one of those unwatched news shows has been bending it. Well, I can tell you as her dad that I did not. As much as me no likey the nefarious underpinnings and corrupt acts of ACORN, having my kid dress like a hooker and infiltrate such a place is not in my repertoire. That was Hannah’s baby from start to finish. I simply told her to be careful because we all know how dangerous sweet community organizers can be. Oh, FYI . . . if confessing I’m a sinner, believing orthodox Christian doctrine, saluting our flag and that for which it stands, loving the Constitution, hating terrorists, being fond of guns, hunting, country and rock music while adoring freedom makes me a crazy ultra-conservative Christian lunatic then I guess I am one of those. I will put that name right next to the other name Obama’s former green czar called such a person back in March (I believe he called us “a**holes”).

5. Giles and O’Keefe doctored the tapes. This is silly. James is a talented post-production editor, but he didn’t put the words in the ACORN workers’ mouths. He’s sharp . . . but not that sharp. Anyway, if he did you and I both would know it because it would have looked and sounded like one of those old Bruce Lee flicks. Unfortunately for Bertha, Andrew Breitbart has the vids and the transcripts in their entirety on his new site biggovernment.com for anyone to behold. Grab some popcorn and watch ‘em. It’s a teachable moment. Oh, speaking of the tapes: You might wanna go back to the San Bernadino one and listen to the list of politicians the ACORN lady rattled off as elected officials who would possibly be ready and willing to assist with the House for Hookers program.

Well, my children, that’s the inside poop on how it happened. That’s reality. I, personally, am stunned by what my kid and her cohort did in ratting out tawdry corruption on the highest (or lowest) level. As far as I am concerned, Giles and O’Keefe are American heroes par excellence. They accomplished something in a few short weeks, on a wing and a prayer, that other agencies and people have been trying to expose for many, many moons.

SOURCE

One defence of ACORN that Doug Giles has not mentioned above is the inadvertently honest one given by NPR -- that the actions of the ACORN staffers are attributable to their "low income" background. I say "inadvertently honest" not because it is accurate but because it reveals what the Left really think about the poor whom they claim to champion. And it is an opinion that has got me steaming to some extent. I think it is a disgraceful slur on poor people to say that the behaviour of the ACORN staffers is typical of the poor.

I myself come from a poor family, an Australian one. I remember my mother borrowing money out of my moneybox when I was a kid so that will give you an idea of the family finances. And to this day I am most at home among working class Australians. I speak their distinctive language and, given that background, I find that they have far more realism, far more heart and a much better sense of humour than the intelligentsia. But I guess that the NPR crew didn't really mean "low income" literally. In full, they said that "ACORN's workers are coming from the same low-income neighborhoods the organization serves", so I suspect that "low income" was code for "black". So it was racism, not class prejudice, that moved them. They are bigots either way, however.

Posted by John Ray (M.A.; Ph.D.). For a daily critique of Leftist activities, see DISSECTING LEFTISM. To keep up with attacks on free speech see TONGUE-TIED. Also, don't forget your daily roundup of pro-environment but anti-Greenie news and commentary at GREENIE WATCH . Email me (John Ray) here

Must not call a Malay a monkey?

Retired footballer and Australian TV commentator in trouble over "monkey" comparison
"Sam Newman is embroiled in another race controversy after saying a Malaysian man was a "monkey" who's "not long out of the forest" on The Footy Show.

Newman made the remarks during his Sam's Mailbag segment, which featured an item about a 107-year-old Malaysian woman, Wook Kundor, marrying for the 23rd time. He held up a photo of Kundor and her husband Muhammad Noor Che Musa, 37, and described him as a "monkey".

Newman's comments clearly shocked Carlton forward Brendan Fevola, a panelist on Thursday night's show, who said, "you can't call him a monkey". Newman later said, "This isn't going to Malaysia, is it?"

Source

Malays are East Asians with somewhat darker skin than more Northerly East Asians but I have never heard of them being referred to as monkeys. I think Newman was just referring to the appearance of that one particular Malay. I have known some monkey-like whites in my time. But the speech police have obviously made all references to monkeys risky -- though you can call GWB a "chimp", of course.

Posted by John Ray (M.A.; Ph.D.). For a daily critique of Leftist activities, see DISSECTING LEFTISM. To keep up with attacks on free speech see TONGUE-TIED. Also, don't forget your daily roundup of pro-environment but anti-Greenie news and commentary at GREENIE WATCH . Email me (John Ray) here

An uncouth boor for a prime minister

News.com.au - KEVIN Rudd has launched another expletive-laden tirade -- this time directed at Labor's factional bosses, including three female MPs. The outburst two weeks ago left the hardened ALP operatives shocked. The factional leaders had gone to see the Prime Minister in his Parliament House office to object to government plans to slash MPs' printing allowances from $100,000 to $75,000 a year. The decision was in response to a report into parliamentary perks by the Auditor-General.

According to sources present, Mr Rudd said: "I don't care what you f---ers think!" He then went on, singling out Senator David Feeney declaring, "You can get f---ed", before asking, "Don't you f---ing understand?"
You'd never hear of John Howard carrying on like this pig of a man, it's bad enough that the fellow is a socialist merrily flushing our hard-earned down the toilet, it's bad enough that he's leading us towards that wretched carbon trading scheme that's going to tax us on just about everything from food to fuel, but that's not enough for the left, they also want Australia to be represented by this ass of a man.

If you won't do anything in the interests of the nation Kevin Rudd, at least pull your damn head in and stop embarrassing us. It'd be real swell if you could bring some respect back to the office of the Prime Minister; use some of you money to hire someone to teach you some manners or at the very least, don't let it get splashed across the evening news for all to see and hear about.