British government under reporting its crime rate

To the tune of 2-3 million violent crimes.

The stats are compiled by polling people on violent crime. If the person reports more than five instances a year, all further reports are disregarded. Let me give you an example. If a woman reports that her husband beat her up eight times this year, the crime stats will report it as five incidents of violent crime.

European governments are notorious for cooking their books when it comes to stats on social problems. Whenever you quote stats, you should know who produced them. It just like when people tout the infant mortality and literacy rates of Cuba without ever acknowledging that the source is the Cuban government itself.

Utopian social engineers - 0, Human nature - 1,675,789,456

Australia's experiment with injecting rooms is encouraging junkies to overdose.

These rooms are places where drug addicts can go to inject themselves with heroin. There are nurses on station to prevent overdoses and help the addicts with their habits.

Well it turns out the giving these people a safe zone to do drugs only encourages them to do more drugs. The addicts know that if they overdose there is a good chance that the nurses on staff will be able to bring them back to life. Therefore they are encouraged to use more. As a consequence, the overdose rate in these rooms is much higher than that of the average junkie getting high at home.

Only an idiot could not see this coming. The Utopians think that they are helping these people, but all they are doing is giving them higher tolerances for illicit substances that ruin their lives. This is further proof that when you encourage, or at least remove the worst consequences from bad behavior, the situation gets worse not better.

Is Fred Thompson the next Reagan?

The Dims think so.

I like to hear the they are afraid of Fred, and I do think that there are some similarities with Reagan.

I have heard that some conservatives might be turned off by some answers he gave on a survey about abortion back in the 90s. Reagan signed a permissive abortion law while governor of California. He later changed his mind on this issue, which Fred seems to have done as well. I doubt this will hurt him much.

The media likes to portray conservatives and pro-lifers as fire breathing fundamentalists who will not let anyone who disagrees with them into the Republican party. This could not be further from the truth. The Republican party has a pretty big group of abortion supporters in it. It is easier to find a pro-choice Republican than a pro-life Dim.

I like how the Dims are planning to attack Thompson as a beltway insider. He is one, but so is every Dim running for president. Thompson at least can point to a career outside of the Beltway.

They go to absurd lengths to make it seem like everything has been handed to him because of his political contacts. They even claim that he got the "Law and Order" job that way. Sure because we all know that a conservative Republican is guaranteed a Hollywood job the instant they leave office. That is why you will catch Tom Delay tonight as the tough no-nonsense Chief of police who plays by his own rules but gets results on "The Shield."

Have these people even watched Law and Order? It seems that sixty percent of the bad guys on that show are Left wing ideas of the stereotypical Republican or conservative. The criminal is always a self-righteous religious figure, greedy business man, racist/homophobic WASP, or gun toting anti-government crackpot. You hardly ever see a lefty bad guy.

Speaking of using connections to make money, when are we going to get to talk about Whitewater again? Turning $100,000 into millions off of cattle futures? Millions of dollars in speaking fees? Record book advances? Chinese military payola?

Dims, is this the road you really want to go down?

Self-Help idiocy

There are some worried that the new piece of pop self help non-sense "The Secret" is producing a blame the victim mentality.

The mantra of the book is "ask, believe, receive." It is based on the idea that there are laws of attraction, and that like attracts like. This is idiotic. Does the rape victim want to be raped an therefore attracts the rapist? Of course not.

The self help industry is truly American in that it peddles a lot of easy answers to complex questions. It is also insidious in that it tricks a lot of ignorant people into thinking that the problems in their lives can be fixed with positive thinking, meditation, or wishing them away. In America we are taught to have a certain aversion to suffering and hardship. If you are hungry, you eat; cold, put on a sweater; not satisfied with your wide, divorce her. We cannot fathom that people would fast out because of religious beliefs. We can not grasp the dignity of suffering.

Yes friends there is dignity in suffering. It is an act that is so human because it is not only inescapable, but also illustrates that as rational creatures we can endure. It is an irrational act with much meaning. A good Epicurean man would commit suicide at the first hint that his pleasures were subsiding.

People want easy answers and a simple solution to life. Well here is the best answer I can give to how life works:

"Life is suffering, but is is also pleasure and joy. You must take the good with the bad. There are no simple answers because the world is not simple. We will all suffer. Some will suffer more and some less. Still, that does not mean that one who suffers less has a better life or is some way more valuable than the other. The child with Down Syndrome will probably have a less full life than a genius. That does not mean that their life is worth less or is somehow on a lower level than that of Einstein. They are as beautiful, perhaps more beautiful, than the greatest minds of man. They will see the world forever in ways most will never know. They may never cure cancer or drink deeply from Shakespeare, but they learn the most important lesson: the simple pleasures of life are the best. We will all hurt and grieve, but God loves us and is not ignorant of our plight. All he asks is a short period of endurance with the promise of an eternity of freedom. Seize the day, the world is a ugly and beautiful place. Stop worrying about your personal pain, fulfillment, or hang ups and put the world in its proper perspective. Be happy and let not your heart be troubled. The richest and happiest man on earth will go to his grave with regrets, pain, and hurt. Just enjoy what you have."

Exhibit #1,345,987 why you should not trust Leftists

Under pressure from the French, the government of Columbia released FARC leader Rodrigo Granda after he promised to call for peace and a demobilization of the narcoterrorist group.

Long story short, the little commie bastard went back on his word and promised to "never demobilize or call for an end to armed struggle until our objectives are met."

Which gets to my point, you can not trust Communists. Reagan was right about them, they have no morality past what furthers their political ambitions.

For those of you not up to speed, FARC is a Marxist rebel group in Colombia which follows the teachings of Che Guevara and finances their terror tactics with drug trafficking, kidnappings, and petty brigandry.

But I thought the media was Right wing

Surprising absolutely no one, a new report shows that journalists tend to give money to Dimocrats and Left wing causes.

The libs now a days like to assert that the media is really right wing. This is refuted by the article above. Their evidence for this is that the majority of editorial pages in the last couple of decades have endorsed Republican presidents. This is idiotic. Sure they may endorse Republicans, but they also run scathing anti-right editorials more often than they criticise libs. All that piece of evidence does is confirm that there is a severe strain of schizophrenia running through the media. It also gives them a convenient way out of criticism for left wing bias. Sort of like calling for the confiscation of guns one day, but giving to the NRA the next.

What really irks me is when media figures get in front of the camera and, with a straight face, tell us that they report the news without bias. This is absurd and impossible. We all have built in unspoken prejudices that work at an unconscious level. It is evident in the words we use and the manner in which we process information. Journalist's bias creeps into every story, even if they mean well.

I tend to agree with Bernard Goldberg. He claims that journalist are telling the truth when they claim they are not bias. His position is that they do not even realize that they are bias. They live in such an isolated little world that they rarely encounter a thought that is different from theirs. Their heuristics are confirmed by those around them so often that they can not seriously consider that anyone else thinks any other way. Perhaps this is true.

Fox News is not "Fair and Balanced" but it does give the opposite sides of each debate a pretty good chance to air their views. On most of the shows you get people from both sides arguing. On the other hand, when I watch CNN or MSNBC, you get less of that and more of a single host talking to a partisan.

Here is the point of all of this: Journalists report the news in a bias way. They may not purposefully try to color the news in a certain light, but they are human and therefore can not report in a way that is completely devoid of prejudices and unspoken assumptions. If they would just admit that, it would help to restore a little bit of trust in their work.

Jimmy Carter: Stop favoring religious extremists over ultra-religious extremists

Carter, the greatest idiot America ever put into office, claims that the US refusing to support Hamas, noted terrorist group and front for Iranian megalomania, is "criminal."


How does one man come to hate his own country and all that is good and decent? Then again, why would anyone listen to Carter. This was the man who did not understand Soviet brutality till the invasion of Afghanistan. He apparently was not paying attention when the Soviets crushed the Hungarian Revolution in 1956 and the Prague Spring of 1968.


Carter is a madman and a traitor to boot. If he had his way, leaders like Washington and Jefferson would be replaced in the pantheon of good men with the likes of Hugo Chavez and Fidel Castro.

Jimmy Carter is a true American traitor. He has a knee jerk anti-American streak that he just can not control. He is bitter because it is obvious the American people made the right choice when they sent him packing. I hope he lives a long life in his obscurity and irrelevance.

Christian by day, Muslim by night.

A female Episcopal is also a practicing Muslim.

This story is truly a marvel at the idiocy of some people. She defends her contradiction by claiming that even Christians can not work out all of the details. Listen Christians may argue over the details, but she does not even get the big picture. This is obvious in her professed beliefs:

"She has never believed in the Christian doctrine of original sin, and for years she struggled with the nature of Jesus' divinity, the Times said, concluding Jesus is the son of God insofar as all humans are the children of God, and that Jesus is divine, just as all humans are divine — because God dwells in all humans. "

This is ludicrous. If Christ was not the Son of God, then he was a mad man. How can you even call yourself a Christian if you hold these beliefs? If I am as much a son of God as Christ then even calling my religion Christianity is absurd. It could just as well be Joeanity or Timanity because my beliefs have as much validity as those of Christ.

This woman is obviously nuts. She has tried to merge two religions that can not be reconciled. The interesting thing is that Christianity and Christian societies allow her to hold such heretical views and flaunt her own apostasy. In a Muslim society she would have been stoned to death long ago.

This woman is no Christian. To her assertions and beliefs and claims I have this statement, which I hold as dear to my heart as any words ever written:

" I believe in one God, the Father, the Almighty, maker of heaven and earth, of all that is, seen and unseen.

I believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ, the only Son of God, eternally begotten of the Father, God from God, Light from Light, true God from true God, begotten not made, of one Being with the Father. Through Him all things were made. For us and for our salvation, He came down from heaven; by the power of the Holy Spirit, He became incarnate from the virgin Mary, and was made man. For our sake He was crucified under Pontius Pilate; He suffered death and was buried. On the third day, He rose again in accordance with the Scriptures; He ascended into Heaven and is seated at the right hand of the Father. He will come again in Glory to judge the living and the dead, and His kingdom will have no end.

I believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the giver of life, who proceeds from the Father and the Son, with the Father and Son, He is worshipped and glorified. He has spoken through the prophets.

I believe in one holy, catholic, and apostolic Church. I acknowledge one baptism for the forgiveness of sins. I look for the resurrection of the dead, and the life of the world to come.

Amen."

If one disagrees with these statements, fine, but you are not a Christian. She can call herself whatever she wants, but calling yourself a doctor does not mean you can prescribe medicine. If you are a Christian you must believe that the path to salvation was laid out by Christ and not Muhammad.

This lady needs to go back to her mosque, put on her burka, and stop trying to reconcile the irreconcilable.

Opinions are like buttholes...

...they all end up on my blog.

Here are a few interesting articles all of you, the astute Ring of Gyges fans, should read.

1. VDH (one om favs, big man crush) analyzes the immigration debacle.

Long story short, he gets it right.

This bill is the worst of both worlds. It brings together the greediest and worst of the business world with the pimps and race baiting panderers of the radical Left. It is an unholy alliance akin to the Nazi-Soviet Non-Aggression pact.

2. Jay Nordlinger's Wednesday Impromptus was worth the read.

3. Nice editorial at Opinion Journal about fatherhood.

It is nice to see that the old manly virtues are once again being investigated. I find the continued feminization of boys in the modern age quite troubling.

Jonah Goldberg on Education

Jonah Goldberg hits the nail right on the head.

I have always agreed with the proposition that the government should provide funding for the schools, but not the schools themselves.

Listen, most of the money that goes to public schools gets spent on worthless administrators and do nothing teachers. What needs to be done is provide a certain amount of money for each student and let private entities run the schools. The government should also allow them to have the right to hire and fire teachers at will.

Education is a commodity like everything else. Teaching is not a higher calling it is just another job among many. We need to demystify the public schools and its employees in order to have realistic reform. It is time to decide between what is good for the education establishment and what is good for the kids. They are not the same things.

Real education reform probably will not happen because in many places the school districts have become nothing more than job providers. Where I grew up the schools were the biggest employers in the town. It was a common thing for people to leave after graduation, go to one of the big cities, and if they failed, end up back at home working at one of the schools.

Liberal absurdity

Hat tip to the NR on this one.

90% of this article is mindless bullshit, but the rest is pretty interesting.

The author recognizes the absurdity of the American Left, but then lapses into the same old class warfare tripe that motivates the whole thing.

He praises the New Deal, which was an unmitigated failure that left millions in poverty to this day. He blames free trade for the ills of American society, but in attacking Big Business, why do we never question the input of Big Labor? Why doesn't he discuss the depression of wages caused by illegal immigrants.

This is one problem I have with the Left and people like this. They worry about all the people working at Wal-Mart, decry the loss of manufacturing jobs, and basically make it sound like the vast majority of Americans are just blue collar rednecks working substandard jobs. This is not ever remotely true. Just thirty years ago people like him were decrying the fact that so many of us worked in factories that polluted the air, discriminated against women, and pushed consumerism. You cannot decry the loss of factory jobs without demanding a rise in consumerism.

He does correctly identify part of the problem, that most of the liberals do not understand the middle class, middle America electorate, but he does not offer a plausible solution. I think that people like him would be very disappointed if they followed their own advice and talked to these people.

They would not find young waiters and house cleaners waiting for the "Progressive" in shining armor to ride in, raise their pay, vanquish their bosses, and give them free health care. They would find people who distrust the idea that the government can help them at all. They look around and see crime in the streets, illegal immigrants slowly taking their jobs, and bureaucrats that care more about protecting their jobs than helping the people they are tasked to assist. All they can deduce from this is that the government is at best ineffective, and at the worst indifferent. How are these people going to have faith that the new spending programs and welfare benefits will get to them effectively?

Additionally, he credits the New Deal with creating the industrial middle class. The industrial middle class existed before Roosevelt's horrid New Deal. All Roosevelt did was set the grounds for a welfare state that has failed to provide what it promised.

Most Liberals misunderstand Conservatives. They think that they are indifferent to the poor and all for business. Let me met some of these objections: (These are all things actual libs have said to me, I am not constructing strawmen here.)

A Lib might say:

1. Conservatives are either hostile to the poor or indifferent to their suffering.
Answer: Conservatives are neither of these things. Conservatives tend to come from middle America which is poorer than the rest of the country. I would put money on the fact that more Conservatives grew up poor than liberals or "Progressives." Conservatives understand that lots of people have it hard in America, but also understand that there is little the government can do about it. Poverty can not be legislated away. We are human beings, there will be winners and losers in every economic system. Demanding "more equal distribution of wealth" is just positing an unfounded value judgment onto the economic system. There is only so much you can do for people.

2. Conservatives use social issues like gay marriage to drive voters away from voting for their economic interests.
Answer: This argument is founded on the idea that there are distinct classes that have a common undivided economic interest. The idea of classes is an abstraction. Just because two people have the same or similar incomes does not mean that they have the same interests. Helping steel workers in Pittsburgh does nothing for the autoworker in Detroit. The fact that the farmer in Texas gets government subsidies does not mean that the construction worker in Seattle will be better off tomorrow. This view also operates under the assumption that some how economic issues should always trump social.

Libs do not give credence to the idea that social issue and economic issues are intertwined. They also do not account for the fact that social issues are often more important to the average person than economic. I will explain. You can not address economic issues and give a free pass to social issues.

Libs complain about poverty, but they never ask about the real issues underlying poverty in America: teen pregnancy and single parenthood. They can not touch these issues in a real way. It would undermine the sexual revolution and the women's liberation movement. Culture plays a bigger hand in poverty than all the greedy business men on the planet. A woman who has a baby before she is 18 is almost certain to fall into poverty. If you give her government help, you are just exacerbating the problem by subsidizing it. In situations like this the libs never ask several important questions: "Why did the woman even get pregnant in the first place? What pushed her to have sex at this young age before she was married? Why is she not marrying the father?" All of these questions are social questions. Society has a wink wink policy toward underage sex these days. The loosing of moral and social standards has led us here.

The libs also do not understand that many people hold social views because of deep seated religious or ethical conviction. People in America really do live by the "Teach a man to fish..." mentality. They want people to succeed without the help of the government.

In a nutshell I can sum up a lot of what Conservatives think on issues like these with this:
"Yes there are many poor people in America, but there are also a lot of people who succeed every day and pull themselves out of poverty through industriousness and hard work. Yes there are people suffering in America, but that is true of all nations everywhere at all times. Suffering is part of the human condition. Just because someone is richer or more prosperous than someone else does not mean that their life is better or more worthwhile. Giving people subsidies and programs does not make them happier or more secure. They are still dependant on charity and the largess of others. They have not been liberated or helped in anyway. They are jsut like slaves who change masters. There is only so much that we as flawed creatures can do for our fellow man. We can not perfect the world, we must learn to make improvements where we can, and accept our limitations. No political ideology can fix the problems of man. There are those that can do more to alleviate some, but there must always be trade offs and a final solution is impossible. Be happy with what you have, because someone is always worse off than you. In this world it is better to be content with your blessings and failures and not worry about what others have."

The shame of Ireland

The W.H.O. has released the numbers on global alcohol consumption.

Luxembourg has the highest rate of consumption. No surprise, the Irish are number two. In fact, I take that back. What the hell is wrong with the Irish? Come on butch up. What would the world be without the drunken Irishman? How could you let a country no bigger than a postage stamp defeat you at your own national sport?

Of course the article does allude to the fact that people tend to cross into Luxembourg to buy cheap alcohol. Maybe Ireland is number one. They should get a recount.

The US came in at number 40 by the way. The Japanese and Mexicans had lower consumption than we did. I wonder if they counted sake as an alcoholic beverage? I wouldn't because the stuff is sort of weak.

Well anyway, it is a slow news day.

Modern schoolyard activities: Merry-Go-Round, soccer, vicious rape...wait what

Sex offenders are getting younger and more violent.

Experts are blaming it on "a society saturated in sex and violence." I'm sure there is a lot of truth to this. You can not turn on a television without seeing something that is totally unsuitable for children. Porno pop ups are all over every computer. Kids today see more sexual images in a year than adults in 1904 saw their entire lives.

The break down of society has reached its acceleration point. A lot of blame can be put on sexual abuse, but is that also not linked in some way with the modern obsession with sex? We are taught to treat other people as objects, just there for our own enjoyment. Go to any frat party and you will see what I mean.

I also like how this article tries to place the blame for the rise in child sex offenders on the fact that there are laws against it. One expert placed the blame on "fairly draconian laws with very harsh sanctions that apply to juveniles."

Yeah that is the ticket, the sure way to have less rapes is to make the laws less draconian. Hey lets try that with murder too. Soon we can have a crime rate of zero. All you need to do is act.

Listen, the laws are there because there is a genuine problem. Some people want it to look like there is an overreaction to sexualized children. This is nonsense. Any fool can see that exposing a child to sex, someone unprepared to understand the ramifications of the act both spiritually, physically, and morally, is going to lead to some really dangerous consequences.

Beautiful, simply perfect.

Defeat's Killing Fields

This op/ed from the NY Times (I know I know I know) is simply divine.

The authors truly understand what defeat in Iraq means for the US and for the world at large. Listen, Libs love to draw comparisons with Vietnam every time a story about Iraq breaks. This is perfectly natural for them because their efforts were a big part of America's eventual abandonment of the Vietnamese people.

Yet even they can not ignore the price that the people of Southeast Asia paid for their victory over a non-existent "military industrial complex."

I hear all the Dim presidential candidates pledge that they will "end the war in Iraq." Of course their only proposal is the withdraw and leave the people of Iraq at the mercy of the mullahs and beheaders.

If we were to leave tomorrow the war would not be over. There would still be car bombings in Baghdad, riots in Najaf, and murders in Anbar.

Whenever I hear someone suggest that we need to get out I just think about this and this.

The victims of Lib defeatism and hatred are still roting in the soils of Asia, Africa, and South America. They should be ashamed of themselves.

Dick Cheney Definitions: Cheneypedia

We all love, or at least fear, Dick Cheney. Cheney has dabbled in many things. Here are some definitions:

1. Cheney Colostomy: The detonation of a 20 megaton warhead in the anus of a Muslim.

2. Cheney Long Division: When a judge cuts a disputed piece of personal property in half, eats one half, urinates on the other, then burns anyone who objects with a cigar.

3. Cheney Home video: snuff film.

4. Dick Cheney Snapple: The blood of the proletariat.

5. Cheney Promotion: Being the first person Dick Cheney eats on Passover.

6. Cheney Alka Seltzer: Molotov Cocktail

7. Cheney Toothpick: A Trident ICBM

8. Cheney E-mail: EMP

9. Dick Cheney Bar Mitzvah: Like a regular Bar Mitzvah, but with more blood, weeping, and sodomy.

10. Cheney Hole Punch: Chaingun.

Are the kids shy or just stupid?

Apparently asking students to raise their hands if they think they know the answer to a question in class is a bad thing.

Ok I will admit it, I was, and still am, one of those little Hermione Grangers. I answered at least two-thirds of the questions asked by my teacher in 8th grade U.S. History. I still answer as many questions as I can in law school.

I also know a lot of kids hide in the back of class and try to stay off the radar. I do like the suggestion that the teacher pick a child at random to answer the question. In law school they do this. Some professors even make you stand. I think this is a good system. It keeps the kids on their toes and requires them to do the work if they do not want to look like an idiot in front of the class.

The other ideas, asking the question then giving kids 30 seconds of "thinking time" or telling them to discuss it in small groups for a short period are both asinine.

Number one, both take too much time. It is better to try to get an answer and move on. If the kid in the front wants to answer the question let them. I doubt that the kid who is in the back trying to avoid the teacher's gaze even knows the answer.

The small groups thing is a recipe for disaster. Once you let a bunch of giggling ten and eleven year olds freely interact, getting control back will take a Herculean effort.

The one thing that I dislike about this article is that it never blames any poor student performance on teachers. It places all of the blame on parents. While parents do deserve a lot of it, so do teachers. It is their job to make sure our kids are learning.

The reason I bring this is up is because teachers do not get their fair share of the blame when it comes to poor student performance. They are the proverbial "Sacred Cow." I cannot remember the last time I heard anyone suggest that perhaps the teachers are somewhat culpable in the death of education.

Lets face it folks, here in America, we do not send our best and brightest in to the teaching profession. This is not meant to offend, but most of the public school teachers I have dealt with in my life have been intellectually unimpressive. In fact, I myself have little to no respect for public school teachers. I see them as little more than glorified babysitters. This assessment is bore out by the fact that the Education departments of major universities contain the students with the lowest IQ's, the lowest test scores, and the worst GPAs.

Yet, in America you rarely hear any real criticism of teachers. All you hear is the blatant falsehood that they are "under paid and under appreciated." More money is always the answer and the bureaucracy grows.