Amazing that we have to be reminded of this.

Murders. Child mortality. Death in automobiles. Work place death. Protection from disease by the medical system. 

All substantively better, yet we collectively are as worried as ever. Education system, where are you? Elected officials, why are you reinforcing this? 

Is it as simple as there's far more incentive to keep us worried than to remind us of how good we have it? Or, do we as a species need to worry - is that a functional state for a tribe of hunter-gatherers and we don't know what to do with our angst in the time of the greatest plenty and safety in the history of the world?

https://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2020/02/21/bernies_wrong_we_are_better_off_today_than_we_were_45_years_ago_142456.html

Hypocrisy Much?

James O’Keefe’s Project Veritas, a group that has often infiltrated news organizations to uncover liberal bias, has released an explosive “hot mic” video of Good Morning America co-host Amy Robach venting about ABC’s decision to spike a story about Jeffrey Epstein’s nefarious activities three years ago.

https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/abcs-excuse-for-failing-to-report-on-jeffrey-epstein-makes-absolutely-no-sense/

ABC News anchor Amy Robach was recorded on a hot mic claiming the network spiked a story exposing Jeffrey Epstein three years ago. The hot mic outburst was published by Project Veritas, a controversial conservative watchdog group that claimed the tape was leaked by an ABC News insider.

https://www.foxnews.com/media/abc-news-epstein-clinton-george-stephanopoulos

This week, Project Veritas released a video featuring ABC News anchor Amy Robach on set, speaking in August with a running camera and a hot mic. In her conversation with others off-camera, apparently during a setup or commercial break, Robach noted with some frustration that she had the story about the allegations against Jeffrey Epstein all to herself three years ago and with about as much detail as anyone could expect. But her network, she added, inexplicably refused to air it.

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/the-media-protected-jeffrey-epstein-and-crucified-brett-kavanaugh

Millionaire Victim

Millionaire victim who lost by 55,000 votes.

There are some who are so desperate to see victims, they see it everywhere they look.

https://thehill.com/opinion/campaign/458562-stacey-abrams-benefits-from-a-voter-suppression-tale

If you can do this 8% of the time you can be president ....

Of the 37 fact-checked claims attributed directly to Donald Trump, 14 were labeled “False,” seven were “Misleading,” four were “Exaggerated (Misleading),” three were “True,” two were “Mostly False (Misleading),” and one each was “Correct Attribution (Misleading),” “Distorts the Facts (Misleading),” “False (Lack of Evidence),” “Half True (Misleading),” “Mostly False,” “Mostly False (Misleading) (Lack Of Evidence)” and “Three Pinocchios.”

While it is difficult to directly compare such a wide range of verdicts -- and Trump’s number of fact checks far exceeds Biden’s -- it is worth noting that both candidates had 38% of their claims labeled “False”; 46% of Trump’s statements were merely “misleading” in the view of the fact-checker (rather than false) compared with 38% of Biden’s. And 8% of Trump’s statements were judged to be true versus none of Biden’s.

And these are the people who are supposed to further take over health care ... what could possibly go wrong.

https://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2019/08/31/trump_lies_biden_slips_--_but_fact_checks_tell_different_story_141144.html

Who Is Responsible for What ...

Part 1:

She described what happened next: "I am still so upset that I concluded the easiest, least confrontational way forward was to place male satisfaction above my own desires and to go back to bed." The sex made her feel "gross," she wrote, and Kaiman left immediately afterward. His recollection is that she was a full participant and that he stayed the night. When he went to kiss her goodbye the next morning, he says, he was surprised that she seemed distant and upset.

After he left, she stewed about what had happened. She was angry with both herself and him, and she wrote an email to tell him so. He felt "gutted" by her reaction, immediately apologized, and suggested they get together to talk it out. They met, and she ended up feeling his apology was insufficient. He thought that since she voluntarily resumed sex, their encounter was fully mutual, that his apology was appropriate, and that when they parted their friendship was on track.

https://reason.com/2019/08/23/im-radioactive/

Part 2:
Tucker provided both a societal and a personal explanation. She wrote that in the wake of #MeToo, she wanted to "add my voice to the broader outcry against sexual misconduct." She also said she had come to realize that "what happened was not my fault…and I do not share the blame. This was Jon's fault."

The Frailty of Human Nature

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2019/08/26/the-failure-to-see-what-jeffrey-epstein-was-doing

No one would say "the emperor has no clothes"? Epstein provided a product that was worth the risk? People in those circles don't rock the boat for fear someone will come for their boat? 

Why was anyone willing to tolerate Clinton palling around with this perve, given Clinton's proclivities? #metoo is a joke compared to the tolerance for this person and his accomplices.

"Money offers one explanation for why people seemed to ignore what was plain to see. But money, here, is really shorthand for a range of ways to exert influence. Epstein used it to buy prestige, donating millions to Harvard and hosting dinners for scientists and scholars; and to buy protection, hiring ruthless legal representation. Even now, though, it’s not clear what his business was. Some of the people who dealt with him were wealthier than he was and, one would think, at least as financially adept."

It's a Big Old Crazy World

It is difficult to avoid feeling contempt for persons like this, who seem to be able to behave against all the rules and still avoid the consequences most of us would face. But the contempt detracts from my life, and this guy has to be in his own company all of the time, seems like that's suffering enough.

It is perplexing in moments when personal virtue seems irrelevant to a person's ability to make huge pots of money entertaining the masses.

https://nypost.com/2018/11/02/how-come-alec-baldwin-always-gets-away-with-it/

Lies, Damned Lies and Statistics - what do we know?

It is essential that we look at data, and it is easy to be fooled by what we find when looking at the data.

https://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2018/09/04/mass_shootings_in_america_anatomy_of_a_hyped_statistic_137960.html

Publish the data with the conclusions, let others review it, that's the first step towards legit science. 

Power Corrupts

Fascinating and dark, I don't know many folks that could handle this kind of power, certainly not Trump.

https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/donald-trump-a-playboy-model-and-a-system-for-concealing-infidelity-national-enquirer-karen-mcdougal

Isn't This Obvious?

“Rainbow Gatherings, as a matter of principle, are free and non-commercial. Using money to buy or sell anything at Rainbow Gatherings is taboo.” Niman added, “The Rainbow Family, however, rejects all forms of money, including alternative currencies like time credits or barter notes.”
https://fee.org/articles/when-hippies-used-snickers-as-currency/?utm_source=FEE+Email+Subscriber+List&utm_campaign=79156f24b3-MC_FEE_DAILY_2017_08_18&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_84cc8d089b-79156f24b3-107299969

"Free but money is taboo". Right. Like black but white. Like right but wrong. Like good but bad. Free but money is taboo.  Buffoonery.

Oh what a tangled web we weave ...

when we force immature technology on the market place through government coercion or taxation (taking at money at gunpoint from the productive and giving it to the unproductive). This tail of pointless waste is going to reach way into the future.

https://www.theguardian.com/sustainable-business/2017/aug/10/electric-cars-big-battery-waste-problem-lithium-recycling

"What A Muldoon"

In January, 2006 — when promoting his Oscar-winning (yes, Oscar-winning) documentary, An Inconvenient Truth — Gore declared that unless we took “drastic measures” to reduce greenhouse gasses, the world would reach a “point of no return” in a mere ten years. He called it a “true planetary emergency.” Well, the ten years passed today, we’re still here, and the climate activists have postponed the apocalypse. Again.

Read more at: http://www.nationalreview.com/article/430380/al-gore-doomsday-clock-expires-climate-change-fanatics-wrong-again

Self defense? What a Stupid Idea

In times past, feminists urged self-reliance as a means of fighting rape — through, for example, self-defense classes. In June, The New England Journal of Medicine published a study of a Canadian program that cut the risk of rape by nearly half, and the rate of attempted rape by even more. In four three-hour sessions, the program trained female students on assessing risk among male acquaintances, overcoming obstacles to resisting coercion, practicing verbal and physical resistance and focusing on their own desires and relationship values. ‘‘Effective interventions focusing on men’s behavior are also needed,’’ the authors of the study said. Yet student activists argue that the burden should be almost entirely on men to stop sexually assaulting women, not on women to keep themselves out of danger. ‘‘If someone is so incapacitated they can’t stand up or use their words, then you should not be having sex with that person,’’ said Jessica Fournier, a Harvard junior who belongs to the survivor group Our Harvard Can Do Better. ‘‘That’s where the focus needs to be. That’s much more effective than giving out a list of 5,000 things victims shouldn’t do.’’
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/13/magazine/the-return-of-the-sex-wars.html?partner=rss&emc=rss&_r=1

This is how jacked up philosophy can become.  If it was your daughter, would you tell her to do whatever she wants to do, no matter the risk?  Of course you would not.  You would teach her how to take care of herself to reduce the risk of suffering injury and pain.  You would explain that no matter how wrong the other party was, that won't make the injury or pain go away.

These people teaching women to love victimhood are brutalizing a generation.

This is spot on:
"To Halley, it’s strange to hear feminists appealing to men to change their behavior while leaving women out of the equation. ‘‘I’m really troubled by this trend in which women are helpless and passive and men are the big responsible protectors,’’ she said. ‘‘That’s the ideology of the gilded cage. It’s astonishing to see feminists reawakening it uncritically. If young people are going to have a robust role in creating the conditions they want to live in, feminists have to call off this ban on discussing the risks and the moral ambiguities that come up with excessive alcohol use.’’"

Noonan on JFK: Well Said

Why, after all the historians’ revelations and the stories of the past 30 years—the women, the drug use, the Kennedy White House’s own farfetched efforts to do away with Fidel Castro, the fantastical nature of the Bay of Pigs, the failure of JFK to anticipate and answer the crude communist clichés of Kruschev at Vienna, etc., etc.—why do we continue to hold this special place for JFK? Because in the months and years after his death we fell in love with him as he was presented to us by those who knew and cared about him. Youth, beauty, charm, high intentions, wit, a certain fatalism and, deep down, a certain modesty. “Camelot.” But Camelot isn’t JFK. Camelot is the way we remember America before JFK died. Camelot is the America that existed, for one brief shining moment, before Lee Harvey Oswald began to shoot. a placid-seeming, even predictable place that we have not seen since.
http://blogs.wsj.com/peggynoonan/2013/11/16/why-we-still-talk-about-jfk/

Blind Leading the Blind

Vice President Joe Biden's self-defense advice - warding off potential intruders with two shotgun blasts outside the house - has had an impact on at least one man.

Jeffery Barton, a 52-year-old Vancouver, Wash. resident, pleaded not guilty Wednesday to charges stemming from his decision to chase alleged car intruders away with a shotgun blast in the air. He cited Biden's advice as his inspiration, according to a local news report.

"I did what Joe Biden told me to do," Barton told KOIN. "I went outside and fired my shotgun in the air."

During an online question and answer townhall event in February Biden advised that people keep intruders away by firing two shotgun blasts outside.

"I said, Jill, if there's ever a problem just walk out on the balcony here or walk out, put that double-barreled shotgun and fire two blasts outside the house," Biden said. "I promise you who ever is coming in is not go - you don't need an AR-15."


Read more: http://dailycaller.com/2013/07/17/man-cites-bidens-self-defense-advice-in-shooting-charge/#ixzz2ZQMlNgWr
http://dailycaller.com/2013/07/17/man-cites-bidens-self-defense-advice-in-shooting-charge/

Obligation?!?!?!?

"Walmart-the nation's largest private sector employer-is joining the ranks of companies seeking to avoid their obligation to provide employees with health insurance as required by Obamacare."
http://www.forbes.com/sites/rickungar/2012/12/09/walmart-bails-on-obamacare-sticks-taxpayers-with-employee-healthcare-costs/

Obligation?  Insanity.

Tale of Sadness, Woe, and Mis-Understanding Making Waste

"The company, Beef Products Inc., does something unique. It takes the last bit of trim meat off the bone by heating it slightly. That saves money and arguably helps the environment -- not using that meat would waste 5,000 cows a day. In 20 years, there is no record of anybody being hurt by what ABC and its activists call "pink slime" -- what the industry just calls "lean beef trimmings" or "finely textured beef."

""Everybody constantly says, 'You should eat leaner beef.' So when we try to eat the leaner beef, then they take that away from us, too," Gainor said. "The company ... has received awards for how good a job they do for consumer safety. It was just one constant hit job."

"An effective one. After ABC's reports, Beef Products Inc. closed three out of its four plants. Seven hundred workers lost jobs."
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2012/12/05/food_bunk_116334.html

Who Are We Talking About?

http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/335494/real-fat-cats-victor-davis-hanson#
"With the new obsessions over income and net worth, we might as well also means-test all federal programs. Should anyone - do we remember Solyndra? - be eligible for federal cash loans if he makes over $250,000 per year? Why would affirmative action apply to the children of millionaires like the offspring of Eric Holder, Susan Rice, or, for that matter, Barack Obama, while excluding the destitute children of Appalachian coal miners and the poor clingers of Pennsylvania?

"Remember the revolving door that Barack Obama once promised to end? The former head of his Office of Management and Budget, Peter Orszag, used his title and insider contacts to walk right into a Citigroup fat-cat banker's job that pays him an estimated $2 million to $3 million a year.

"Clinton administration apparatchiks such as Jamie Gorelick, James Johnson, and Franklin Raines - without much banking experience - reaped millions of dollars working at Fannie Mae as it went nearly bankrupt. If you leave government and immediately make more than $1 million, why not pay a 50 percent tax on your income for five years - given that "somebody else made that happen"? Why does Google have tax havens in the Caribbean, and why do six-figure-income college presidents have their taxes paid by their universities?"

The short answer on the college presidents is - because it lets them either pay less in taxes or pay less in the aggregate for the services of the president so compensated.

As for the rest - predictable distortions resulting from a bizarre tax system that seems to serve no one but the politically connected.

How we'll ever convince the politically connected to change a system that serves them so well I cannot guess.

Electricity Powers Buffoonery, Costly Buffoonery

Nothing illustrates the superficiality of our times better than the enthusiasm for electric cars, because they are supposed to greatly reduce air pollution. But the electricity that ultimately powers these cars has to be generated somewhere -- and nearly half the electricity generated in this country is generated by burning coal.
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2011/12/27/random_thoughts_112538.html

The electric car thing - if they would just let it happen in its own time, after we rebuild the grid with a France-like reactor system, it would work.  But the idealogues stuck on E are not patient enough to wait for electric cars to make sense.  Of course, since our government runs it, we'll never have a smart system for generating electricity, either.

More from Dr. Sowell:

The wisest and most knowledgeable human being on the planet is utterly incompetent to make even 10 percent of the consequential decisions that have to be made in a modern nation. Yet all sorts of people want to decide how much money other people can make or keep, and to micro-manage how other people live their lives.

Galling

I can't think of any term other than galling when a person who has such difficulty deciding when or when not to tell the truth, or perhaps just can't tell the difference, starts moralizing about the reasons why it is OK for the political class to use the government's coercive monopoly on force on the rest of us.

I can't name any names or even hint any until after I'm retired - which is fine, it could apply to many.

Why did we ever think it was about choosing politicians we could trust.  So freaking gullible ...