Month: June 2014

The State of Immigration ~ Busses, Taxes, Health & Military Bases

Published by Papa Giorgio

(AP) The Border Patrol has been overwhelmed by a surge of undocumented immigrants crossing the border illegally in the Rio Grande Valley of Texas, including nearly 50,000 children traveling on their own, the AP reported.

[….]

(American Thinker) …Then there are contagions like Chagas Disease, a parasitic illness that was endemic to South and Central America but now infects between 100,000 and 500,000 illegal immigrants currently living in the US. 

The CDC considers Chagas Disease one of the “neglected parasitic infections (NPI), a group of five parasitic diseases that have been targeted by CDC for public health action,” another of which is guinea-worm. The guinea-worm parasite, an uninvited alien of a different kind, causes severe pain as the worm works its way though a human host’s subcutaneous tissue.

Hepatitis A-E are viral infections that attack the liver.  And then there’s highly-contagious tuberculosis, which had been brought under control in the US, but thanks to a border that remains open, is growing harder to control.

Incurable Multi-Drug-Resistant (MDR) Tuberculosis, a strain resistant to all standard anti-TB drugs, is now on the rise in the US.

In an article in the Journal of the American Medical Association, Dr. Reuben Granich, a lead investigator for the CDC, concluded: “Reluctant to label the infected as ‘illegal’ or even ‘undocumented’ aliens…407 known cases of MDR-TB, 84% were ‘foreign-born’ patients, mainly from Mexico and the Philippines who’d been in the U.S. less than five years.”…

…Recently, shoppers in Nyack, NY were exposed to measles in Palisades Center Mall. So, a word to the wise: the next time a French fry falls on the table in the food court or the handle of a shopping cart is grabbed, remember that along with open borders and liberal politicians come diseases and various deadly pathogens either formerly eradicated or never endemic to the US in the first place, are waiting for a new host, and you are nominated.

The Washington Examiner has this bit of a stat I have been seeing floating around:

A city-sized rush of about 120,000 illegal immigrant children and teens from Latin America is expected to crash through the U.S. border this year, twice the administration’s prediction, leading humanitarians to seek much more than the $1.5 billion spent to handle the runaways.

U.S. authorities report that there was massive surge in May of children trying to escape crime, drug gangs and sexual exploitation in Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador, leading them to cast aside the administration’s prediction of 60,000, which was still more than twice the 24,000 apprehended last year.

“It’s a city of children,” said Annie Wilson, executive vice president for Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service (LIRS), a national group that works with the government to settle child refugees and exiles.

“It’s 100,000 kids on their feet walking out of their country,” she said, adding that the numbers are “unprecedented” and due more to avoiding threats back home than the lure of America.

“In desperation, people have chosen the impossible odds of fleeing over what seems like the certainty of death and fear,” added Rev. David Vasquez, a campus pastor for Luther College in Decorah, Iowa, and an immigration advocate….

Some scary warnings creep into the large amount of illegals crossing our very porous border with major health problems, as Front Page Magazine notes, illegal aliens bringing 60 percent lethal drug-resistant TB to the united states.

They have a dream. And it just might kill you.

A member of Congress who for more than 30 years worked as a doctor says the baggage that illegal aliens are bringing into the United States now is killing people.

Last week it was reported that a persistent strain of tuberculosis had developed in some Los Angeles neighborhoods. Officials said as many as 4,500 people may have been exposed to the disease.

Besides California and Florida, the states with the greatest number of multi-drug-resistant TB are Texas and New York, all having large numbers of illegal aliens within their borders. Florida was recently ranked as having the third largest illegal alien population by the Department of Homeland Security. Many illegals in Florida come from the Caribbean and other countries in the Southern Hemisphere, some of which have widespread problems with tuberculosis.

Diversity is bringing a diverse variety of plagues to the United States allowing Americans to benefit from exposure to new and exotic strains of diseases.

The Nepalese man detained at the U.S. border carries a particularly deadly strain—XDR, “extensively drug-resistant” TB. His TB is resistant to at least eight of the 15 or so standard drugs, according to a U.S. government description of the case reviewed by the Journal. His XDR strain has been seen only once before in the U.S., in another patient of Nepalese origin, according to the government description.

The Nepalese patient was taken into custody by the U.S. Border Patrol in late November as he tried to cross the border illegally near McAllen, Texas.

It remains unclear whether other people in custody with the Nepalese detainee might have been infected. By the time the Border Patrol learned of his infection, other people detained with him would have been transferred elsewhere, the CBP official said. Detainees who are suspected of being ill are placed in cells by themselves.

Daily Mail: Obama opens third military base to deal with flood of illegal child immigrants as officials insist they are being cared for despite abuse allegations

  • Base at Fort Sill, Oklahoma, will initially hold 600 ‘unaccompanied minors’
  • There has been a tidal wave of children trying to slip into the States
  • They are largely from Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala

ABC 15: “We are starting to see chicken pox, MRSA staph infections, we are starting to see different viruses,” ….”It’s unclear how many were treated for illness.

Watchdog Wire: While traditional media sources report researchers as attributing the rise in whooping cough cases to a new type of pertussis vaccine considered safer but less effective over time along with reduced rates of inoculations, one has to also wonder the impact of illegal immigration. ….. “‘Data from the Texas Department of Health Services shows that Austin’s Travis County had 79 infant pertussis cases last year, which was the highest number of cases among major counties in Texas. Also, Travis had the smallest number of infant population [2010 Census] but also the highest percentage of infants that contracted the disease. Dallas County was the second highest with 63 cases, Harris County in Houston third with 43, and Bexar County of San Antonio with 21 cases.'”

ABC 15: PHOENIX – After finding out bus loads of undocumented immigrants were being dropped off in Phoenix, many wonder what’s happening to them when they step off the bus.

A local organization is helping them by letting them use cell phones to call family in other states so they can get bus tickets out of Phoenix.

Many of those bused to Phoenix are families with children. Immigration and Custom Enforcement officials say most are from Central America and were detained in Texas.

Xiomara Maldonado told ABC15 that when she dreamed of coming to the United States, she never imagined how it would turn out.

“They saw us like animals,” she said about the holding facility in Texas.

She and her son are from Honduras. They entered the U.S. illegally and were caught in McAllen, Texas.

She said conditions were horrendous.

“Everyone was packed in like sardines. Too close to sleep. They came in the middle of the night to drop off bread and bang on the doors,” she said.

They both hadn’t bathed or slept in days when they were taken from Wilcox, Ariz. and loaded onto a bus headed for Phoenix….

Bill Whittle is joined by Steve Green, and, in for Scott Ott, Eboni K. Williams. Incensed about the recent decision to place illegal immigrants in Arizona (without asking the state or having any clear strategy), and also concerned about Eric Holder’s recent announcement that the Justice Dept. will provide attorneys to illegals, Bill vents about the lawlessness on Trifecta.

Michelle Malkin: …San Antonio’s Lackland Air Force Base opened its doors as an illegal immigrant camp last month. Port Hueneme Naval Base in Ventura County, California will shelter nearly 600 illegal border-crossing children and teens. The Fort Sill Army post in Lawton, Oklahoma, was ordered on Friday to take in 1,200 illegal aliens despite the objections of GOP Gov. Mary Fallin, who blasted the White House for blindsiding her and her state:

“The Obama administration continues to fail in its duty to protect our borders and continues to promote policies that encourage, rather than discourage, illegal immigration.”

A makeshift detention center in Nogales, Arizona is being used as the central clearing station for the latest illegal alien surge. The deluge is a threat to national security, public safety, and public health – not to mention a slap in the face to the law-abiding men and women in uniform on those bases and a kick in the teeth to law-abiding people around the world patiently waiting for approval of their visas.

Meanwhile, a law enforcement source in Texas tells me this week that countless illegal aliens are being released into the general public despite testing positive for tuberculosis. “The feds are putting them on public transportation to God knows where,” he said….

Breitbart: …Arizona Governor Jan Brewer said more than 1,000 illegal immigrant children will be dropped off in Arizona this weekend, continuing what she said is the Obama administration’s “dangerous policy” of dumping illegal immigrants from Central American countries into Arizona, something that will continue into the foreseeable future. Officials in Arizona said that though the illegal immigrants have been told to report to an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) center within 15 days, they have no idea where the illegal immigrants are going.

The Arizona Department of Emergency and Military Affairs told Brewer that 432 such children were expected to be transported on Friday and another 734 over the weekend.

Brewer said that she was “disturbed and outraged” that the Obama administration continues to implement this “dangerous and inhumane policy” while “neglecting to answer crucial questions our citizens demand and deserve.” She noted, “Not only does the federal government have no plan to stop this disgraceful policy, it also has no plan to deal with the endless waves of illegal aliens once they are released here.”

“If the Obama administration put half the effort into securing our border as it has invested to institute this operation, our state and nation would not be facing this situation,” she said. “This is a crisis of the federal government’s creation, and the fact that the border remains unsecure – now apparently intentionally – while this operation continues full-steam ahead is deplorable.”

Breitbart Texas first reported photos of illegal immigrants from Central America being warehoused in Texas, and Arizona may face a similar situation as officials scrambled to find medical supplies for the recently dumped illegal immigrants.

A holding center in Nogales had to be opened “because the Department of Health and Human Services had nowhere to turn,” and a Department of Homeland Security official told the Associated Press “that children are sleeping on plastic cots but about 2,000 mattresses have been ordered, and portable toilets and showers have been brought to the holding center –  a warehouse that has not been used for detention in years.”

The warehouse reportedly has a capacity of about 1,500, and a Homeland Security official said, “As quickly as we move them out, we get more. We believe this is just a start.”…

Democrats Are Handing the Keys of the Middle-East To Radicals

Published by Papa Giorgio

Think your gas cost a lot now Prius owners? With the new restrictions on coal plants and coming taxes on electric cars… you eco-fascist liberals will get a bigger bite than most driving to work. Karma’s a bitch!

Gateway Pundit:

Retired United States Army Lieutenant Colonel and author Ralph Peters says the recent Al-Qaeda victories in Iraq are the greatest Islamist conquests since the 12th Century.

“Patty Ann, this is President Obama’s real legacy. The creation of the first jihadi state in modern history stretching from central Syria to Central Iraq and now approaching Baghdad all because President Obama saw everything through a political lense. He’s gonna end the War in Iraq. He refused to negotiate seriously for residual US presence.

And now, just to put this in perspective for viewers, with this jihadi conquest of Mosul and jihadi forces approaching Baghdad, this is shaping up to be the biggest Arab jihadi victory since the 12th Century, 1187, and the fall of Crusader Jerusalem. This is momentous.”

The Iraqi government asked the United States for airstrikes in western Iraq on surging Al-Qaeda groups. But, Barack Obama has turned them down.

Bush wanted a base in Iraq to be able to stop such incursions. Obama is handing the keys of the Middle-East over to radicals.

It’s An Obama World!

Trigger Words, Or Picture, Cause The ELOI Trolls Discomfort

Published by Papa Giorgio

This was a photo posted by a loving boyfriend of his girlfriend… out… experiencing life, and this is what was said by some:

“Jessa, of all the things you can be representing, please consider this … with all the horrific and senseless killings that have been occurring in our society lately, it’s not the wisest thing in the world to be casually holding a machine gun in a photo for all to see,” one individual wrote in a comment.

“No human needs a machine gun,” another added.

“While I believe in the right to bare arms, I can’t believe a Christian would send out this photo because it’s fun. if you want to be an adult act like one. I doubt her parents are proud of that picture,” echoed yet another person.

(Via The Blaze)

As this American culture is battered with the hyper-sensitivity of political correctness in even “trigger words” ~ even a picture sends some into a tizzy.

Welcome to the world of cultural Marxism. I noticed as well, over at The View, when WIll Cain showed with simple facts how liberals say over-arching statements to support a specific that the previous statement does not address:

Whoopi argued that shootings/crime with gun was going up, Will Cain said no, it is going down (see previous post):

While Cain was guest-hosting “The View” on Wednesday, Whoopi Goldberg, a gun owner, began a segment by saying there have been 74 school shootings since the tragedy at Sandy Hook in 2012. Cain immediately stepped in to correct her.

“I don’t think it is the 74th,” Cain said. “That’s a stat put out by this group called Everytown USA, who is for gun control. We know a couple stats, these are by Pew and the FBI. Gun violence is down drastically over the last 20 years. I mean, drastically. What I will tell you is, every time these terrible things happen, we want to learn a lesson. And it’s understandable — we want to grab sanity. … What can we do to ensure this doesn’t happen? I don’t know. Crazy people exist.”

“I will suggest this,” Cain continued. “I think when the media reports so breathlessly and salaciously on these things, these guys copycat each other.”

(The Blaze)

BTW, it looks — to me — like Will Cain was holding back. He has an image to uphold with the entertainment world, the Views pop-culture. It seems like he could have unloaded (pun intended) much more than he did… but was aware of whom he was talking to.

  • Whoopi says: “If it’s ten a week, or five a week, it’s too many man… it’s too many kids… it’s too many…”
  • Will Cain responds, almost facetiously [but politely with a sarcastic smile on his face] says: “I can’t disagree with that. It’s Always too many.”

If you cannot win an argument on the specifics, make up a meta-narrative to win. I wish to also point out a similarity between people posting on Jessa Duggar’s pic posted by Ben Seewald, and the above video. At one point the co-host, Sherri Shepherd — bless her little heart — said that you can take a semi-automatic and spray the crowd in 5-seconds:

“If you have a semi-automatic – I’m not talkin’ about a regular ‘pow-pow’ ….”

Will Cain responds to her diatribe, and then we get this convoluted non-response to tug on uneducated heart strings:

“In five-seconds a semi-automatic can spray this entire audience.”

This is like someone on the shot of Jesse Duggar saying: “No human needs a machine gun.” DUMB! And frustrating. No one had machine guns in any of the shootings so enamored in the press by the Left.

The Left has no idea about guns. Remember this statement from Democratic Rep. Diana DeGette who has been the lead in two Congresses by sponsoring a bill for a federal ban on high-capacity ammunition magazines:

Another example comes from California State Senator Kevin de Leon (D-Los Angeles) who made a fool of himself as he attempted to explain the capacity of an automatic rifle — HERE. Jesse’s pic was just another example for the trolls of the Left to show their devolution in interacting with the world around them… creating a more secluded world where they dream of lollipops and unicorns farting rainbows.

May I also note the “legalism” many people put on the Christian faith. When someone says basically that a Christian shouldn’t own or take pictures holding a gun… they are applying a layer of legalism only found in the most fundamentalist churches. However, this is the point of the illiberal egalitarianism found on the left (cultural Marxism via political correctness). It is legalistic. And Galatians rejects this type of Phariseism, clearly, and resolutely.

Another Piece To The Benghazi Puzzle — Phone Calls

Published by Papa Giorgio

Via Gateway Pundit:

Eric Stahl, a retired major in the U.S. Air Force, told Baier (see video below) that members of a CIA-trained Global Response Staff were confused by repeated references to a video as the driving force behind the attacks, because the administration “knew during the attack…who was doing the attacking.”

Stahl added:

“Right after they left the consulate in Benghazi and went to the [CIA] safehouse, they were getting reports that cell phones, consulate cell phones, were being used to make calls to the attackers’ higher ups.”

A second source confirmed these reports and stated that security teams on the ground were receiving intelligence about the terrorist phone calls in real time.

Mass Shootings Have Decreased ~ Obama vs. Australia

Published by Papa Giorgio

The American Spectator has this great information that sets the record clear by giving guidelines to the debate:

Type “mass shootings” and “common” into a search engine and you’ll get all sorts of breathless commentary that might lead one to believe there Americans face a genuine epidemic of shooting rampages. A few headlines:

  • Vox: “Mass shootings on campus are getting more common and more deadly.”
  • ThinkProgress: “Mass Shootings Are Becoming More Frequent.”
  • NPR: “Study: Mass Shootings Are On The Rise Across U.S.”
  • Washington Post: “Why are mass shootings becoming more common?”

[….]

Homicide in America is far more common than it ought to be. But mass shootings — defined as four or more murders in the same incident — constitute a minuscule share of the total, as I discuss in “The Shooting Cycle” in the most recent edition of the Connecticut Law Review…

I want to break here and post something Mother Jones said in trying to define what a Mass Shooting is… “she” says this:

Broadly speaking, the term refers to an incident involving multiple victims of gun violence. But there is no official set of criteria or definition for a mass shooting, according to criminology experts and FBI officials who have spoken with Mother Jones.

Mother Jones then goes on to quote the definition — after being ambiguous about it — as four or more [excluding the shooter]. Wikipedia says this:

The FBI defines mass murder as murdering four or more persons during an event with no “cooling-off period” between the murders. A mass murder typically occurs in a single location where one or more people kill several others.

  • Aggrawal A. (2005) Mass Murder. In: Payne-James JJ, Byard RW, Corey TS, Henderson C (Eds.) Encyclopedia of Forensic and Legal Medicine, Vol. 3, Pp. 216-223. Elsevier Academic Press, London
  • “Serial Murder – Federal Bureau of Investigation”. Fbi.gov. Retrieved 2012-03-07.

It is odd to me why Mother Jones would be ambiguous about it while at the same time use the accepted FBI terminology/definition. At any rate, I HIGHLY suggest reading this Debunking of Mother Jones’ “10 Pro-Gun Myths,” worth the read.

Obama recently praised Australian gun-control.

ANN COULTER tackles this “Australian Stat” often mentioned. She quotes the New York Times’ Elisabeth Rosenthal as saying this:

Rosenthal also produces a demonstrably false statistic about Australia’s gun laws, as if it’s a fact that has been carefully vetted by the Newspaper of Record, throwing in the true source only at the tail-end of the paragraph:

“After a gruesome mass murder in 1996 provoked public outrage, Australia enacted stricter gun laws, including a 28-day waiting period before purchase and a ban on semiautomatic weapons. … Since, rates of both homicide and suicide have dropped 50 percent … said Ms. Peters, who lobbied for the legislation.”

John Lott Responds:

…Here is the actual data from Australia. First note that gun ownership exhibits a very interesting pattern that isn’t often acknowledged. There was a large gun buyback in 1996 and 1997 that reduced gun ownership from 3.2 to 2.2 million guns. But immediately after that gun ownership increased dramatically and is essentially back to where it was before the buyback. Why is that important? Well, if it is the number of guns that is important, you should initially see a large drop in suicides or crimes and then see it increasing. Yet, in none of these data series do you observe that pattern.

For example, homicides didn’t fall until eight years after the laws. It is not clear what theory they have for why the long delay would occur. Nor can I even find an acknowledgment of that long lag in the cited literature. A more natural explanation for the drop at the eight year point would be the substantial increases in police forces that occurred at that time…

…ELSEWHERE he states:

…This is actually pretty amazing given the threat that the government could actually again try to confiscate guns in the country. That imposes a real potential tax on gun ownership.

Australians own as many guns now as they did at the time of the Port Arthur massacre, despite more than 1 million firearms being handed in and destroyed, new research reveals.

A University of Sydney study has shown there has been a steady increase in guns imported into the country over the past decade, with the number of privately owned guns now at the same level as 1996. . . .

Weirdly, gun control advocates are claiming that the buy back is lowering suicides at the same time that they are upset that gun ownership is back to it pre-buy back levels. One doesn’t need a semi-auto to commit suicide. While Australia’s population grew by 20 percent between 1997 and 2011, apparently its gun ownership rate grew by 45 percent. If they are right, the pattern should have been clear: suicides with guns should have plunged in 1997 and then quickly grown after that. Obviously that pattern wasn’t what was observed….

Crime is dropping recently in Australia, but this can be attributed to gun ownership rising back up to the previous rates before the ban. GAY PATRIOT comments on the before mentioned Obama quote about Australia:

I reiterate the two hidden rules of “Common Sense Gun Laws:”

1. “We only want to keep guns away from dangerous persons.”

2. “Anyone who owns a gun is a dangerous person.”

NATIONAL REVIEW also makes the point that in order to praise Australian “success,” one is praising anti-Constitutional actions:

Let me be clear, as Obama likes to say: You simply cannot praise Australia’s gun-laws without praising the country’s mass confiscation program. That is Australia’s law. When the Left says that we should respond to shootings as Australia did, they don’t mean that we should institute background checks on private sales; they mean that they we should ban and confiscate guns. No amount of wooly words can change this. Again, one doesn’t bring up countries that have confiscated firearms as a shining example unless one wishes to push the conversation toward confiscation.

[….]

Obama gave the impression that gun-violence is on the increase. This is false. As both Pew and the Department of Justice recorded last year, the majority of Americans believe that gun violence is proliferating when it is in fact dropping. This year marked a 20-year low. More than anything, America has a copycat problem in its schools.

Just a long side-note, continuing with the AMERICAN SPECTATOR article:

 

…The Bureau of Justice Statistics reported that from 2002-2011, 95 percent of total homicide incidents involved a single fatality, 4 percent involved two victims, 0.6 percent involved 3 victims, and only .02 percent involved four or more victims. Another study performed between 1976 and 2005 yields similar results — that less than one-fifth of 1 percent all murders in the United States involved four or more victims. In other words, the bottom line is that out of every 10,000 incidents of homicide, roughly two are mass killings.

Further, contrary to what the zeitgeist may suggest, mass shootings are not on the rise. Prominent criminologist James Alan Fox has found “no upward trend in mass killings” since the ’70s. Take campus statistics as an example: “Overall in this country, there is an average of 10 to 20 murders across campuses in any given year,” Fox told CNN  (and roughly 99 percent of these reported homicides were not mass shootings).  “Compare that to over 1,000 suicides and about 1,500 deaths from binge drinking and drug overdoses.” Mass shootings on college campuses lag far, far behind many much more prevalent social and mental health problems.

The rare nature of these incidents also holds true for safety in K-12 schools, which garnered a significant amount of attention in the wake of the tragedies in Columbine and Newtown. According to two reports by the Centers for Disease Control, the probability of a child “dying in school in any given year from homicide or suicide was less than one in 1 million between 1992 and 1994 and slightly greater than one in 2 million between 1994 and 1999.”

…READ IT ALL…

Of course any story like the above needs a positive one added to it. The Blaze has this:

Two armed criminals reportedly put a gun to a 17-year-old girl’s head on Monday night as she was outside retrieving something from a car. The man, whose intentions still aren’t entirely clear, then ordered the teenager to take them into her house — a decision that would prove to have deadly consequences.

Peering out the window of the St. Louis home were the girl’s mother and father, each prepared to protect their daughter with deadly force. There was also a 5-year-old boy in the house, though his relationship to the family wasn’t known on Tuesday.

The girl’s father, a 34-year-old man, reportedly observed the men walking towards his home while holding a gun to his daughter’s head, a sight that no father ever wants to see. He quickly retrieved his firearm and his wife did the same.

The brave dad then confronted the two criminals and opened fire, hitting both suspects with accurate shots…

Why Capitalism Works ~ PragerU (w/Sowell, Freidman & Brooks)

Published by Papa Giorgio

This post is connected with another that is similar in it’s point.

Here, Thomas Sowell writes about the pernicious lie that comes from the Left by speaking about a great book by Arthur C. Brooks from AEI. What prompted me to post this is the indoctrination of our youth in this Facebook post that is horribly wrong in many respects:

Cowboy Shooting

“But seriously, to claim that we live in a post racial era is the epitome of absurdity. Although i’m all about forging unity we can’t do so while ignoring the reality of racial injustice, white supremacy, and national oppression in this country. Malcolm X perhaps said it best when he said you can’t have capitalism without racism. The capitalist system thrives off of racism and the division it creates amongst the masses of people. To fight tooth and nail against this order exploitation requires a relentless struggle against racism,white privilege, and all forms of bigotry.”

BONO on the free markets:

Here is Thomas Sowell’s review of Arthur Brooks book… there is the pencil example by Nobel winning economist Milton Freidman as well as an Artur C. Brooks presentation at the end. Econ class 150 is in session:

More frightening than any particular beliefs or policies is an utter lack of any sense of a need to test those beliefs and policies against hard evidence. Mistakes can be corrected by those who pay attention to facts but dogmatism will not be corrected by those who are wedded to a vision.

One of the most pervasive political visions of our time is the vision of liberals as compassionate and conservatives as less caring.

[….]

A new book, titled Who Really Cares by Arthur C. Brooks examines the actual behavior of liberals and conservatives when it comes to donating their own time, money, or blood for the benefit of others. It is remarkable that beliefs on this subject should have become conventional, if not set in concrete, for decades before anyone bothered to check these beliefs against facts.

What are those facts?

People who identify themselves as conservatives donate money to charity more often than people who identify themselves as liberals. They donate more money and a higher percentage of their incomes.

It is not that conservatives have more money. Liberal families average 6 percent higher incomes than conservative families.

You may recall a flap during the 2000 election campaign when the fact came out that Al Gore donated a smaller percentage of his income to charity than the national average. That was perfectly consistent with his liberalism.

So is the fact that most of the states that voted for John Kerry during the 2004 election donated a lower percentage of their incomes to charity than the states that voted for George W. Bush.

Conservatives not only donate more money to charity than liberals do, conservatives volunteer more time as well. More conservatives than liberals also donate blood.

According to Professor Brooks: “If liberals and moderates gave blood at the same rate as conservatives, the blood supply of the United States would jump about 45 percent.”

Professor Brooks admits that the facts he uncovered were the opposite of what he expected to find — so much so that he went back and checked these facts again, to make sure there was no mistake.

What is the reason why some people are liberals and others are conservatives, if it is not that liberals are more compassionate?

Fundamental differences in ideology go back to fundamental assumptions about human nature. Based on one set of assumptions, it makes perfect sense to be a liberal. Based on a different set of assumptions, it makes perfect sense to be a conservative.

The two visions are not completely symmetrical, however. For at least two centuries, the vision of the left has included a belief that those with that vision are morally superior, more caring and more compassionate.

[….]

The two visions are different in another way. The vision of the left exalts the young especially as idealists while the more conservative vision warns against the narrowness and shallowness of the inexperienced. This study found young liberals to make the least charitable contributions of all, whether in money, time or blood. Idealism in words is not idealism in deeds.

Here is Brooks short presentation

Some Later Additions:

The Collapsing of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet Man Caused? (Geothermal)

Published by Papa Giorgio

  • Volcanic activity beneath the West Antarctic Ice Sheet is accelerating collapse of the Thwaites Glacier, a new study finds.

Here us the UPDATE via What’s Up With That! (Remember, Thwaites is close to a volcano [see below in original post])

Remember the wailing from Suzanne Goldenberg over the “collapse” of the Thwaites glacier blaming man-made CO2 effects and the smackdown given to the claim on WUWT?

Well, never mind. From the University of Texas at Austin and the “you can stop your wailing now” department, comes this really, really, inconvenient truth.

Researchers find major West Antarctic glacier melting from geothermal sources

AUSTIN, Texas — Thwaites Glacier, the large, rapidly changing outlet of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet, is not only being eroded by the ocean, it’s being melted from below by geothermal heat, researchers at the Institute for Geophysics at The University of Texas at Austin (UTIG) report in the current edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

The findings significantly change the understanding of conditions beneath the West Antarctic Ice Sheet where accurate information has previously been unobtainable.

The Thwaites Glacier has been the focus of considerable attention in recent weeks as other groups of researchers found the glacier is on the way to collapse, but more data and computer modeling are needed to determine when the collapse will begin in earnest and at what rate the sea level will increase as it proceeds. The new observations by UTIG will greatly inform these ice sheet modeling efforts.

Using radar techniques to map how water flows under ice sheets, UTIG researchers were able to estimate ice melting rates and thus identify significant sources of geothermal heat under Thwaites Glacier. They found these sources are distributed over a wider area and are much hotter than previously assumed.

The geothermal heat contributed significantly to melting of the underside of the glacier, and it might be a key factor in allowing the ice sheet to slide, affecting the ice sheet’s stability and its contribution to future sea level rise.

The cause of the variable distribution of heat beneath the glacier is thought to be the movement of magma and associated volcanic activity arising from the rifting of the Earth’s crust beneath the West Antarctic Ice Sheet….

…read more…

Policy Mic had this “scary” picture above, and blamed essentially man-caused global warming, rather than natural causes. Carbon as the driver has been disproved by the evidence (here and here for instance). Likewise, the above was expected — for quite some time — as Hockey Schtick explains:

The “collapse” of the “unstable” West Antarctic Ice Sheet in the headlines this week is actually very old news about a natural process that began at least 1-2 centuries ago, long before man could have had any possible contribution. Studies indicate collapse and complete disappearance of the West Antarctic ice sheet is typical of interglacials. Open seaways were present across West Antarctica at various periods even during the past one or more interglacials. There is, however, no evidence linking this phenomenon to man-made CO2, nor any evidence man can do anything to stop this natural process.

Because “Antarctica is so harsh and remote…scientists only began true investigation of its ice sheet in the 1950s. It didn’t take long for the verdict on the West Antarctic Ice Sheet to come in. “Unstable,” wrote Ohio State University glaciologist John Mercer in 1968. It was identified then and remains today the single largest threat of rapid sea level rise.”

[….]

The new finding that the eventual loss of a major section of West Antarctica’s ice sheet “appears unstoppable” was not completely unexpected by scientists who study this area. The study, led by glaciologist Eric Rignot at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California, and the University of California, Irvine, follows decades of research and theory suggesting the West Antarctic Ice Sheet is inherently vulnerable to change.

Antarctica is so harsh and remote that scientists only began true investigation of its ice sheet in the 1950s. It didn’t take long for the verdict on the West Antarctic Ice Sheet to come in. “Unstable,” wrote Ohio State University glaciologist John Mercer in 1968. It was identified then and remains today the single largest threat of rapid sea level rise.

Why is West Antarctica’s ice sheet considered “unstable”?

The defining characteristic of West Antarctica is that the majority of the ice sheet is “grounded” on a bed that lies below sea level.

In his 1968 paper, Mercer called the West Antarctic Ice Sheet a “uniquely vulnerable and unstable body of ice.” Mercer based his statement on geologic evidence that West Antarctica’s ice had changed considerably many, many millennia ago at times when the ice sheets of East Antarctica and Greenland had not

In 1973, University of Maine researcher Terry Hughes asked the question that scientists continue to investigate today. The title of his paper: “Is The West Antarctic Ice Sheet Disintegrating?” In 1981, Hughes published a closer look at the Amundsen Sea region specifically. He called it “the weak underbelly of the West Antarctic ice sheet.”

Here’s the cause for concern: When the ice sheet is attached to a bed below sea level, ocean currents can deliver warm water to glacier grounding lines, the location where the ice attaches to the bed.

Scientists recognized that this is the first step in a potential chain reaction. Ocean heat eats away at the ice, the grounding line retreats inland and ice shelves lose mass. When ice shelves lose mass, they lose the ability to hold back inland glaciers from their march to the sea, meaning those glaciers can accelerate and thin as a result of the acceleration. This thinning is only conducive to more grounding line retreat, more acceleration and more thinning. In this equation, more ice flows to sea every year and sea level rises.

But that’s not all.

Beginning with research flights in the 1960s that made radar measurements over West Antarctica, scientists began to understand that, inland of the ice sheet’s edge, the bed slopes downward, precipitously, in some cases.

This downward, inland slope was theorized decades ago, but has been confirmed and mapped in detail in recent years by airborne campaigns such as NASA’s Operation IceBridge. In some spots the bed lies more than a mile and a half below sea level. The shape of this slope means that when grounding lines start to retreat, ocean water can infiltrate between the ice and the bed and cause the ice sheet to float off its grounding line.

…read more…

This is UPDATED info via HotAir, and I merely wish to point out that if volcanism starts in the Antarctic, I will Three Stooges slap me some greenie!

…This is not new stuff either. This story has been popping up since 2008. I wrote about it here and here. As noted in 2008, a fairly simple discovery, not mentioned in any of these articles, proffered an explanation of why the ocean water was warming and the ice shelf in question then was melting.

“Scientists have just now discovered an active volcano under the Antarctic ice that “creates melt-water that lubricates the base of the ice sheet and increases the flow towards the sea”. That could include the Wilkins Ice Sheet as well (the article cited talks about the Larson A and B sheets.

But, say the alarmists, we’re not talking about Wilkins or the Larson sheets. We’re talking about the Thwaites glacier.

The study honed in on the Thwaites glacier – a broad glacier that is part of the Amundsen Sea. Scientists have known for years that the Thwaites glacier is the soft underbelly of the Antarctic ice sheet, and first found that it was unstable decades ago.

The University of Washington researchers said that the fast-moving Thwaites glacier could be lost in a matter of centuries. The loss of that glacier alone would raise global sea level by nearly 2ft.

Thwaites also acts as a dam that holds back the rest of the ice sheet. Once Thwaites goes, researchers said, the remaining ice in the sheet could cause another 10 to 13ft (3-4m) of global sea-level rise.

Ok. Well, let’s look at a couple of pictures then. The first is from the 2008 post I did on the volcano:

The second picture, from the Guardian article, shows the area of the study.  The red dot is the glacier in question:

Does anyone notice anything interesting?  Yes, that’s right, the glacier in question, is in the vicinity of the volcano in question.  And I don’t think anyone would argue that a undersea volcano can’t heat up the sea in the vicinity to a little higher temperature than it would be normally.  Has it had an effect?  Who knows … it doesn’t appear to have been mentioned at all in the study.  But, if you go to the Guardian article you’ll see an embedded 17 second video that attempts to explain the effect of the warmer water on the glacier.  It shows less dense (and therefore lighter) warm water somehow flowing under much denser and therefore heavier cold water to destabilize the glacier.  The only reasonable explanation for such a flow would be if the heat source were somewhere near the bottom of the ocean, no?  Otherwise its hard to explain how that warm water got below the cold water and stayed there.

But if you question things like this, you’re an ignorant nincompoop.  A “denier”…

…read it all…

Liberal Activist Is Brutally Raped by a Black Man ~ Blames White Men

Published by Papa Giorgio

(PJ MEDIA) …In a free society, an individual bears sole responsibility for his actions. A whole race, gender, or generation does not bear guilt for the sins of some or even of many in that group of people. It’s unfair and wrong.

But liberals don’t believe this. For example, a white person carries the shame of slavery even if his family members never owned slaves and even if he himself worked to free those in bondage. White equals guilt. Or, as another example, “society” is guilty for creating the psychosexual environment in which frustrated men must rape in order to feel dominant. And then there are the more mundane things like “if she weren’t poor, she wouldn’t be compelled to steal that Ralph Lauren dress.”

A criminal wouldn’t be a criminal if he were loved more and society supported him, therefore it’s society’s fault that he is committing the fill-in-the-blank crime.

So who is to blame, then, when a black man rapes a woman? Would it be the rapist? No….

Liberal activist Amanda Kijera traveled to Haiti on a mission to prove that the portrayal of black men as “savages” was not accurate. Kijera was brutally raped. Of course, she blamed the white man for the violence.

Gateway Pundit has this about the story:

Amanda Clear

 

“It’s the fruit I’m interested in now, no matter how strange or bruised it might appear.”

  • “I went to Haiti after the earthquake to empower Haitians to self-sufficiency.”
  • “He didn’t care that I was a Malcolm X scholar.”
  • “I’m grateful for the experience”

Amanda Kijera was on a humanitarian trip to Haiti, when she was violently raped by a black man. The act was both coincidental and devastating, as Kijera was actually in Haiti to dispel the “myths” that violence against women on the island was overstated by women’s rights organizations. The intention of Kijera’s trip was to push back on the portrayal of black men as “savages” in the media. Her hope was that she would eliminate misconceptions and push back against common views imposed by “the man.” However, Kijera’s trip took a turn for the worse when one of the men she had worked to protect cornered her on the rooftop, and raped her numerous times.

“The experience was almost more than I could bear,” Kijera wrote about the incident, “I pleaded with him to honor my commitment to Haiti, to him as a brother in the mutual struggle for an end to our common oppression, but to no avail. He didn’t care.”

[….]

She also went on to argue that it is up to the United Nations to support people who are forced to bear the brunt of black male aggression. Kijera makes the outrageous claim that dependency on white people causes them to act out against them. She alludes that this was the reason for her attack.

Some interesting points made by Sons Of Montesquieu

Before Its News shot me to Occidental Dissent. This website is a racist website and I DO NOT RECOMMEND IT!! But this led to a forum with the same info:

We are not your weapons – we are women

By Amanda Kijera, civic journalist and activist in Haiti

Two weeks ago, on a Monday morning, I started to write what I thought was a very clever editorial about violence against women in Haiti. The case, I believed, was being overstated by women’s organizations in need of additional resources. Ever committed to preserving the dignity of Black men in a world which constantly stereotypes them as violent savages, I viewed this writing as yet one more opportunity to fight “the man” on behalf of my brothers. That night, before I could finish the piece, I was held on a rooftop in Haiti and raped repeatedly by one of the very men who I had spent the bulk of my life advocating for.

It hurt. The experience was almost more than I could bear. I begged him to stop. Afraid he would kill me, I pleaded with him to honor my commitment to Haiti, to him as a brother in the mutual struggle for an end to our common oppression, but to no avail. He didn’t care that I was a Malcolm X scholar. (he didn’t see her angel halo, Ed.) He told me to shut up, and then slapped me in the face. Overpowered, I gave up fighting halfway through the night.

Accepting the helplessness of my situation, I chucked aside the Haiti bracelet I had worn so proudly for over a year, along with it, my dreams of human liberation. Someone, I told myself, would always be bigger and stronger than me. As a woman, my place in life had been ascribed from birth. A Chinese proverb says that “women are like the grass, meant to be stepped on.” The thought comforted me at the same time that it made me cringe.

[….]

Women are not the source of their oppression; oppressive policies and the as-yet unaddressed white patriarchy which still dominates the global stage are. Because women–and particularly women of color–are forced to bear the brunt of the Black male response to the Black male plight, the international community and those nations who have benefitted from the oppression of colonized peoples have a responsibility to provide women with the protection that they need.

...read more…

One can only get this point of view from spending (going into debt) at a rate of $30,000 a year via an “ivy league” education. Elitism in its purest form passed on by university professors.

A National Story Hits Close To Home Via Our Veterans Park

Published by Papa Giorgio

We have a neighbor who served her country with honor and distinction.

Really.

Not the White House’s post-modern/Orwellian understanding of “honor and distinction,” she really served our country. (See Bowe Bergdahl’s fellow unit members react to Jay Carney saying Bowe served with “honor and distinction [second video].) At any rate, she was at a park in our valley designated to honor our local veterans to check in on her own brick, and she saw this:

Being the curious sort of gal she is… she had to see it was. This is who:

Can you believe it? I checked, Bowe has no connection to our Valley… and people who pushed for the brick really had no idea of all the circumstances surrounding Bowe’s predicament, but here is a conservative blogger from our valley pushing for the brick to be added to our City of Santa Clarita Veterans Historical Plaza… here is the post on the matter he entitled, “Let’s Get a Brick for Bowe Bergdahl“

For a long time, I have followed the story of Bowe Bergdahl. He is an American soldier from Idaho who was captured by the enemy in Afghanistan. To my knowledge he is the only POW from the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

I would like to lead an effort to purchase a brick at the Veteran Historical Plaza in Newhall to bring his plight to the attention of our community and keep his name public in an appropriate manner. To my way of thinking, this commemoration is more meaningful if it is supported by a few individuals who share this belief than by one individual. Therefore , I am inviting four other patriots in joing me to purchase a brick for Bowe Bergdahl to be placed in Veterans Historical Plaza prior to Memorial Day, 2012…..

Again, I doubt Mr. Petzold had any idea about the entirety of the circumstances that led to Bowe being in Taliban hands… but I have a feeling that that brick will be removed. If not, I will lead a movement to have it removed.

Funny how things hit home. We have a large veteran community in town, and I guarantee most of them are scoffing at the “honor and distinction” twist the current Admin is salting this story with. We are blessed as well to have one of the most pro-military reps in Congress from our district, Howard “Buck” McKeon, who, will be involved with this case intimately.

Well all this doesn’t affect the liberal elites in their cozy homes… it only bothers those nameless/faceless people far-far away: Survivors of Afghan Village Massacre Fume Over Obama’s Prisoner Swap. It isn’t like they are destroying wine cellars:

Who cares about them? It’s not like this action will put the Taliban back on their feet from their heels?  

Taliban strikes close on Obama’s heels

The Taliban struck back less than two hours after President Barack Obama left Afghanistan on Wednesday, targeting a foreigners’ housing compound with a suicide car bomb and militants disguised as women in an assault that killed at least seven people.

It was the second major assault in Kabul in less than three weeks and highlighted the Taliban’s continued ability to strike in the heavily guarded capital even when security had been tightened for Mr. Obama’s visit and Wednesday’s anniversary of the killing of al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden in neighbouring Pakistan….

(The Hindu)

 (US Defense Department)

….Coalition and Afghan forces have reversed the Taliban’s momentum and will continue to build on that success, a senior Pentagon spokesman said today.

“The Taliban’s momentum has not only been thwarted, it’s been thrust back,” Navy Capt. John Kirby told reporters. “We believe they are in a much weaker position.”

[….]

“The Taliban [are] in a much weaker position as we head into this spring than they were as little as a year ago,” Kirby said.

[….]

“It was over by the next morning,” he said. Another attempted attack in the hours after Obama’s visit to Afghanistan last week was “completely ineffective,” he added.

U.S. officials believe the Taliban are on their heels. “It is much more difficult for them to move around, to resource, to plan and execute,” Kirby said, though he added it’s too early to count the Taliban out.

“They are still a resilient, determined enemy,” he said. “We understand that. But we really do believe that we have wrested the momentum from the Taliban.”

Mike Rogers thinks different: