The Rutgers basketball story continues to transfix the media, and why shouldn’t it? Mike Rice, the disgraced former Rutgers basketball coach allegedly killed a woman and at least seven viable, born-alive babies “by plunging scissors into their spinal cords” in his filthy, macabre “house of horrors” abortion clinic.
Oh wait, my mistake. Rice was fired last week from Rutgers over video of him shoving, kicking and yelling at his players, throwing basketballs at them and – most damning – using “homophobic slurs.” That’s made Rice the most notorious villain in America. And in one week it earned him 36 network news stories clocking in at 41 minutes, 26 seconds of air time on ABC, CBS and NBC.
Now, had Rice been accused of killing a woman and eight babies, he’d be enjoying the same anonymity as Kermit Gosnell – provided the killings were carried out in an abortion clinic. Gosnell is the West Philadelphia abortionist who ran an unimaginable charnel house of a “clinic,” for 30 years. Witnesses testified that he may have murdered over 100 babies outside the womb. Gosnell’s trial, underway for weeks, has featured wrenching testimony and horrific details. And it has received exactly zero seconds of airtime on the broadcast networks.Apparently you can't call a huge athletic college basketball player a "fairy" if he fails to hustle in practice, but, if you had managed to get to him twenty years before, just after he was born, it would have been OK to murder him. That's American civilization ca. 2013, at least according to the MSM.
You can't wish this stuff away. Over time, returns are going to be subpar and the contributions demanded from cities across California and companies across America are going to go up and more dominoes are going to fall. San Bernardino and seven other California cities may also be headed to Chapter 9. The more Chapter 9 filings, the less money Calpers receives, and the more strain on the fictional expected rate of return until the boiler bursts.
Sadly, the only thing left is to cut retiree payouts, something Judge Klein has left open. There are 12,338 retired California government workers receiving $100,000 or more in pension payments from Calpers. Michael D. Johnson, a retiree from the County of Solano, pulls in $30,920.24 per month. As more municipalities file Chapter 9, the more these kinds of retirement deals will be broken. When Wisconsin public employees protested the state government's move to rein in pensions in 2011, the demonstrations got ugly—but that was just a hint of the torches and pitchforks likely to come.
"My policies are based not on some economics theory, but on things I and millions like me were brought up with: an honest day's work for an honest day's pay; live within your means; put by a nest egg for a rainy day; pay your bills on time; support the police."Anybody really believe that American wouldn't be a better place if we all thought like this? Instead we have a nation of disability scammers and assorted layabouts; a nation of borrowers, buying ephemeral pleasures today while impoverishing our children and our children's children; a nation of defaulters; a nation of scofflaws.
Japan today deployed missile-defense systems at three sites around Tokyo ahead of the possible missile launch, officials confirmed.
The country's defense minister has also reportedly put destroyers with missile interception systems on alert in the Sea of Japan.
"As North Korea keeps making provocative comments, Japan, co-operating with relevant countries, will do what we have to do," Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said today.
"The government is making utmost efforts to protect our people’s lives and ensure their safety," he added.
Japan’s armed forces are authorised to shoot down any North Korean missile headed towards its territory, a defence ministry spokesman said.Remember when liberals ridiculed President Reagan thirty years ago for putting in motion the program to develop anti-ballistic missile systems? They called it "Star Wars," and pushed the story that Reagan was an idiot to believe that we could ever be in a position to shoot missiles out of the sky.
Thatcher came to power when Britain and the West were in every kind of crisis: social, economic, moral and strategic. Along with Ronald Reagan and Pope John Paul II, she showed the world the way out. She believed in the inherent right of free men to craft their own destinies, and in the capacity of free nations to resist and overcome every kind of tyranny and injustice.
These were the right beliefs then as now. She was the right woman at the right time.
The priest in question, who has served as the GW Catholic chaplain for the last five years, is purportedly guilty of the unforgivable crime of upholding the teaching of the Roman Catholic Church. That, at least, is the charge being lodged by Damian Legacy and Blake Bergen. They "say they have left the Newman Center in the last several years because Father Greg Shaffer’s strong anti-gay and anti-abortion views are too polarizing," and they "plan to file a formal complaint with the University and hold prayer vigils outside the Newman Center until Shaffer is removed."...
According to Legacy, who was apparently at one time a regular mass-goer at the chaplaincy, what Father Shaffer does, in fact, is to advise "students who are attracted to members of the same sex to remain celibate for the rest of their lives." Shaffer also reportedly counsels students against abortion, and I would be willing to bet that he advises those who are heterosexually inclined to refrain from sex until they are married.
It will be exceedingly interesting to see what happens at GW.... If things keep drifting in the direction in which they are rapidly drifting now, Catholics and other Christians and Jews who adhere to the traditional Judeo-Christian moral teaching are going to be marginalized, then persecuted. I foresee a day when the tax-exempt status of the Roman Catholic Church will be yanked because it resolutely refuses to ordain women, because it condemns abortion as murder, and because it refuses to condone sex outside a marriage open to procreation. I foresee a day when priests will be fined or imprisoned for articulating in sermons and counseling sessions the teaching of the Church. I foresee a day when similar punishment will be visited on Protestants and Jews who assert the traditional teaching of their faiths.The "idea" of a university today is much different than it was in Newman's time. Today, too often, the purpose of a university is to indoctrinate young people in the liberal creed, and to "deprogram" them from their traditional beliefs. But I hope Rahe is wrong, and I believe in any event is overstating the danger, at least for now. Common sense suggests that these are relatively silly young persons, not for being gay, but just silly in the way young people often are, imagining in their youthful narcissism that any impediment to their self-approbation is wrong and must be silenced.
Over the past 15 years air temperatures at the Earth’s surface have been flat while greenhouse-gas emissions have continued to soar. The world added roughly 100 billion tonnes of carbon to the atmosphere between 2000 and 2010. That is about a quarter of all the CO₂ put there by humanity since 1750. And yet, as James Hansen, the head of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies, observes, “the five-year mean global temperature has been flat for a decade.”OK. Stop there. Let's remember that the key cause-effect equation of the entire global warming theory is that increased carbon in the atmosphere causes warming in a linear relationship. More carbon equals more warming. That's why they've told us we have to engage in economic hari kiri to reduce carbon emissions. But if the equation isn't holding, isn't the correct response of a scientist to rethink the theory itself? But I digress. The article continues:
Temperatures fluctuate over short periods, but this lack of new warming is a surprise.Exactly so. But the question is... what counts as a short period when you are talking about an earth and a sun that are billions of years old? Certainly fifteen years counts as a short period, but then doesn't a century or even a millenium count as a short period too in the grand scheme of things? It should, if scientists were being honest. Meanwhile:
Ed Hawkins, of the University of Reading, in Britain, points out that surface temperatures since 2005 are already at the low end of the range of projections derived from 20 climate models (see chart 1). If they remain flat, they will fall outside the models’ range within a few years.
The mismatch between rising greenhouse-gas emissions and not-rising temperatures is among the biggest puzzles in climate science just now. It does not mean global warming is a delusion. Flat though they are, temperatures in the first decade of the 21st century remain almost 1°C above their level in the first decade of the 20th. But the puzzle does need explaining.Wait another minute.... didn't you just tell me that temperatures fluctuate over short periods? But now you're asking me to believe that, despite the fact that the theory of global warming's predictions haven't been accurate over the past fifteen years, the fact that over a century the globe's temperature has allegedly risen by one whole degree means that the theory is not a delusion? OK, forget about the term "delusion." How about just "unproven hypothesis"?
The mismatch might mean that—for some unexplained reason—there has been a temporary lag between more carbon dioxide and higher temperatures in 2000-10. Or it might be that the 1990s, when temperatures were rising fast, was the anomalous period. Or, as an increasing body of research is suggesting, it may be that the climate is responding to higher concentrations of carbon dioxide in ways that had not been properly understood before. This possibility, if true, could have profound significance both for climate science and for environmental and social policy.Or it might be, or it might be, or it might be... it might be that we simply don't understand the complex interactions with nearly infinite variables that make up the world's environment? So why do we act as though we do, with hysterical public policy demands?
Auriemma said Wednesday that Cuban is a financial genius, but "his genius would take a huge hit if he drafted Brittney Griner.
"I think it would be a sham," he said. "The fact that a woman could actually play right now in the NBA and compete successfully against the level of play that they have is absolutely ludicrous."I like Cuban, but Auriemma is obviously right. Griner is a great player, maybe the greatest woman player ever when all is said and done, but she not only could not make an NBA team, she wouldn't be recruited to be the 12th player on the bench of any of the 200+ Division 1 NCAA men's programs. She's big enough, but she can't jump with NCAA men's players, can't run with them, can't out-muscle them, isn't as quick or (sorry to have to say) as skilled.
The women failed the introductory Combat Endurance Test, a punishing test of physical strength and endurance, officials at Marine Corps headquarters said Tuesday. The latest class began March 28 at Marine Corps Base Quantico, Va., with 110 lieutenants participating. Ninety-six men passed the initial endurance test. Twelve men and two women — the only female Marines taking part — failed.Again, these may be tremendous female Marines who may also be tremendously fit... for women. But they lack the endurance and strength to pass the introductory fitness test for combat training. And, remember, these are officers, lieutenants, who would be platoon leaders in combat. They would be expected to be leaders of the men in their platoons. How could they do that if all of the men are stronger than they are, as they would be?
The president dismissed gun owners’ concerns that gun control legislation could be a stepping stone to gun confiscation in the U.S., saying “I am constrained by a system our founders put in place.”That's not how a President should talk about Constitutional guarantees of individual liberties in the Bill of Rights. What he ought to have said is, "Your rights to bear arms are protected by the Constitution, and I have sworn an oath to protect them." The rhetoric of "constraint" is negative, as if he is saying, "it would be great if I didn't have these pesky Constitutional constraints, but I do, so I can't do what I would like to do... confiscate your guns."
Let me try to understand this: The key incentive for small businesses to support Obamacare was that they would be able to shop for the best deals in health care super-stores—called exchanges. The Administration has had 3 years to set up these exchanges. It has failed to do so.
This is a really bad sign. There will be those who argue that it’s not the Administration’s fault. It’s the fault of the 33 states that have refused to set up their own exchanges. Nonsense. Where was the contingency planning? There certainly are models, after all—the federal government’s own health benefits plan (FEHBP) operates markets that exist in all 50 states. So does Medicare Advantage. But now, the Obama Administration has announced that it won’t have the exchanges ready in time, that small businesses will be offered one choice for the time being—for a year, at least. No doubt, small business owners will be skeptical of the Obama Administration’s belief in the efficacy of the market system to produce lower prices through competition. That was supposed to be the point of this plan....
...we are now seeing weekly examples of this Administration’s inability to govern. Just a few weeks ago, I reported on the failure of the Department of Defense and the Veterans Administration to come up with a unified electronic health care records system. There has also been the studied inattention to the myriad of ineffective job training programs scattered through the bureaucracy. There have been the oblique and belated efforts to reform Head Start, a $7 billion program that a study conducted by its own bureaucracy—the Department of Health and Human Services—has found nearly worthless. The list is endless.
...as a Democrat—as someone who believes in activist government—he has a vested interest in seeing that federal programs actually work efficiently. I don’t see much evidence that this is anywhere near the top of his priorities.
One thing is clear: Obamacare will fail if he doesn’t start paying more attention to the details of implementation, if he doesn’t start demanding action. And, in a larger sense, the notion of activist government will be in peril—despite the demographics flowing the Democrats’ way—if institutions like the VA and Obamacare don’t deliver the goods.
