Holy Hannah! She’s dense.

Just got an e-mail from Hannah who is urging me to support the Dream Defenders plan to honor Trayvon Martin in Florida, and getting rid of Stand your Ground.

I wrote back:

"Let’s honor the lives of all those killed during the trial that never got any publicity. Let’s examine the factors that whipped up racial hatred by our politicians. Let’s look into the story of the guy in a hoodie who came in the convenience store in Dearborn during your riots, killed the male clerk, kidnapped the female manager, then killed her. Has that been on the national news? Lots to investigate here. Illinois has tougher Stand Your Ground than Florida—strengthened by a bill co-sponsored by Sen. Barack Obama."

Maybe she'll take me off her list--I think they scoop up every dot edu and assume they're mush brains for liberal causes.

Pathologizing childhood

CDC claims that 20% of children and adolescents in the U.S. have a mental disorder. (JAMA, v. 310, no.1) Wow. So I skimmed the article. 2/3 of those were hyperactive/attention deficit, about 1/6 were behavior problems, and 1/6 alcohol or drug problems. Talk about pathologizing childhood! This is a gift to Big Pharma to push legal drugs on your kids. But it gets worse. The "health care" costs? $247 billion. No wonder our health care costs exceed those of other industrialized nations if this is how it is figured.

http://jama.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=1707733

http://health.nytimes.com/health/guides/disease/attention-deficit-hyperactivity-disorder-adhd/medications.html

From a mother who was talked into drugging her child:  If “accelerated” has become the new normal, there’s no choice but to diagnose the kids developing at a normal rate with a disorder. Instead of leveling the playing field for kids who really do suffer from a deficit, we’re ratcheting up the level of competition with performance-enhancing drugs. We’re juicing our kids for school.

We’re also ensuring that down the road, when faced with other challenges that high school, college and adult life are sure to bring, our children will use the coping skills we’ve taught them. They’ll reach for a pill.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/19/opinion/sunday/raising-the-ritalin-generation.html

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/22/health/22KIDS.html?_r=0

Al Sharpton, race agitator who never accepts responsibility

From Wikipedia, with sources.

In 1995 a black Pentecostal Church, the United House of Prayer, which owned a retail property on 125th Street, asked Fred Harari, a Jewish tenant who operated Freddie's Fashion Mart, to evict his longtime subtenant, a black-owned record store called The Record Shack. Sharpton led a protest in Harlem against the planned eviction of The Record Shack.^[37][38][39] Sharpton told the protesters, "We will not stand by and allow them to move this brother so that some white interloper can expand his business."^[40]

On December 8, 1995 Roland J. Smith Jr., one of the protesters, entered Harari's store with a gun and flammable liquid, shot several customers and set the store on fire. The gunman fatally shot himself, and seven store employees died of smoke inhalation.^[41][42] Fire Department officials discovered that the store's sprinkler had been shut down, in violation of the local fire code.^[43] Sharpton claimed that the perpetrator was an open critic of himself and his nonviolent tactics. Sharpton later expressed regret for making the racial remark, "white interloper," and denied responsibility for inflaming or provoking the violence.^[15][44]

School choice for the poor; private schools for the rich

The Obamas send their daughters to a toney private school, as do many politicians who come to Washington.  It’s their choice—they love their kids and want the best for them.  However, in 2012 he dropped that same choice (charter schools) for other Washington, DC families, mostly black.  It’s not that he doesn’t care that black children succeed (because they do in those schools), he’s just more afraid of the unions who helped elect him.

The Opportunity Scholarship Program offers vouchers to low-income students to attend private schools. A 2010 study published by Patrick Wolf of the University of Arkansas found that the scholarship recipients had graduation rates of 91%. The graduation rate for D.C. public schools was 56%, and it was 70% for students who entered the lottery for a voucher but didn't win.

Because the president's teachers union allies are opposed to school choice for poor people, Mr. Obama ignores or downplays these findings. He repeatedly has tried to shutter the program, even though it is clearly advancing his stated goal of increasing graduation rates and closing the black-white achievement gap.

http://www.federationforchildren.org/articles/651

http://www.timesdispatch.com/opinion/their-opinion/cantor-let-s-expand-opportunity-for-all-kids/article_c656e8fa-d423-5d56-be66-6d5c0b157d8a.html

Feeling crabby?

LOUISIANA HOT CRAB DIP

Ingredients:
1/2 pound jumbo lump crabmeat, free of shells
1 (8 ounce) package cream cheese
1/2 cup mayonnaise
1/4 cup grated Parmesan
3 tablespoons minced green onions (white and green parts)
2 large garlic cloves, minced
2 teaspoons Worcestershire sauce
2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
1 teaspoon hot sauce
1/2 teaspoon Old Bay seasoning
Salt and pepper to taste

Directions:
Preheat oven to 325 degrees F.
Combine all of the ingredients in a casserole dish and gently stir until thoroughly mixed. Adjust seasoning to taste. Bake for 35 to 40 minutes until lightly golden on top. Serve hot.
Serve hot, with hot sauce on the side for those who like it spicy.
Makes about 1 1/2 cup

Because we all need a break from Obama’s scandals.

Weiner wags again

"New York City mayoral candidate Anthony Weiner admitted on Tuesday to sending additional explicit photos and texts to a woman he met online — correspondence she says began months after he resigned from Congress for similar behavior." (WaPo).

Happy now?

Not all Obama's independent and Republican supporters were voting from white guilt--some were tired of war in 2008 and apparently had missed history class on how to spot a socialist.  Well, not only do we have the two he was handed, he's expanded them to other middle eastern countries and Africa, and added uncountable scandals then lied about them.  Happy now?

The Obama administration is arming Syrian terrorists. The groups within the rebels are squabbling with each other, but we know who will come out on top—al-qaeda.  Christian Syrians are being killed by the rebels, not Assad’s forces. Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Martin Dempsey said, "It is no less than an act of war."

“House Intelligence Committee Chairman Rep. Mike Rogers said Monday that his panel agreed to the administration's plan for military aid despite reservations about its chances for success.

"After much discussion and review, we got a consensus that we could move forward with what the administration's plans and intentions are in Syria consistent with committee reservations," the Michigan Republican said.”

http://www.cnn.com/2013/07/23/politics/us-syrian-rebels

I’m disappointed in the gutless Republicans who seem to think if someone says “war” they need to fund it.

        

Violent crime drastically reduced since 1993, many African-American lives saved

Firearm-related homicides declined 39%, from 18,253 in 1993 to 11,101 in 2011 according to the Department of Justice.  About 50% of those not killed were young, black males.  There were over 1.5 million firearm non-fatalities in 1993 compared to about 478,000 in 2011. Let’s assume over half of the non-fatalities were also black.  School related homicides also declined from about 29 a year to 20 a year. 

Violent victimization rate per 1,000 persons, by annual household income, location of residence, and region, by race/Hispanic origin of victims was higher for poor whites and Hispanics than for poor blacks. 

There was a huge outcry in the late 1980s and early 1990s about black on black crime, and tougher measures were taken in response. The decline in violence came about because of improved policing and tougher sentencing which took hardened criminals off the streets.  It resulted from more drug busts, and more illegal guns removed from the streets.  Also, the baby boomers were aging, and homicide tends to be a crime of young males.   Since 93% of blacks were being killed by other blacks, if the killer were arrested, over half the people being  tried and imprisoned were also black.  That might please the victims’ families, but now the poverty pimps and racialists are crying out over the disparities among the races in prison populations. 

         

Source of graph: U.S. Bureau of Justice statistics, Wikipedia

So which do they want?  More blacks killed by leaving criminals on the streets or out early, or their assailants in prison?

http://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/fv9311.pdf

http://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/bvvc.pdf

http://www.centerforhealthandjustice.org/foj%2011-10.pdf

http://www.indystar.com/article/20130508/NEWS19/305080040/Erika-D-Smith-Federal-crackdown-gun-crime-black-neighborhoods-unfortunate-necessary

http://tpj.sagepub.com/content/91/3_suppl/87S.abstract

http://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/p10.pdf

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324448104578616333588719320.html

8 lbs, 6 oz of hypocrisy

Our media lauds a woman’s “right” to kill her baby—right up to term, yet fawns over one who is in line to be king.

Maybe it’s not hypocrisy, but just a way to keep from talking about all the scandals of this administration, any one of which is worse than Nixon’s Watergate. And he at least had the decency to resign.

The economy isn’t exactly a scandal anymore—it’s just same ol’ same ‘ol.  Huffington Post reports, "The address Wednesday at Knox College in Galesburg, Ill., will be the first in a new series of economic speeches that White House aides say Obama intends to deliver over the next several weeks ahead of key budget deadlines in the fall." Except it won't be "new"--it will be the same speeches he gave before he was elected and during his first term. What can he say? Tax the rich more; pass more regulations; it's all the GOP's [Boehner] fault (the Bush meme got old); the children are hungry. It's the summer rerun season—no wonder it’s fun to watch for a baby.

Paula Priesse on the quacking IRS scandal

“The White House appoints only two IRS positions, the commissioner and the IRS chief counsel, currently William Wilkins. In 2008, Wilkins defended the tax-exempt status of Jeremiah Wright’s church and did so pro bono. What a guy, no wonder O gave him the IRS gig! So check out this timeline from the IG report in the Daily Caller today: 1) April 23, 2012 - Wilkins meets with O in the WH. Arrived 3:54pm, departed over 7 hours later. 2) April 24, 2012 – IRS Commissioner Shulman meets with O. 3) April 25, 2012 – Wilkins sends IRS official Lois Lerner & former IRS lawyer Carter Hull “additional comments on the draft guidance” for accepting or denying Tea Party applications. So we have Lerner taking the Fifth, Cincy agent Liz Hofacre & Carter Hull testifying that denials of DC involvement are pure BS and now this. Forget walks like a duck, quacks like a duck, this has been a duck since day one. And this big fat duck is starting to point directly to O! The media’s reaction? Oh goody goody gumdrops, Kate had a boy!!! P” [from her Facebook wall]

http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2013/05/19/Chief-IRS-counsel-bailed-Jeremiah-Wright-s-church-out-of-IRS-probe-in-2008

http://dailycaller.com/2013/07/19/retiring-irs-lawyer-fingers-obama-appointee-in-testimony/

Summer reruns

"The address Wednesday at Knox College in Galesburg, Ill., will be the first in a new series of economic speeches that White House aides say Obama intends to deliver over the next several weeks ahead of key budget deadlines in the fall." (HuffPo)

Except it won't be "new"--it will be the same speeches he gave before he was elected and during his first term. What can he say? Tax the rich more; pass more regulations; it's all the GOP's [Boehner] fault (the Bush meme got old); the children are hungry. It's the summer rerun season.

We got an eyeful at the coffee shop

We all stared as she walked by at the coffee shop. She was over 6' tall. She wore high heels. Blonde hair in a pony tail. But the dress was a tight sheath, with short sleeves and the hem was just about at the knees. “Very revealing,” I thought. Then thought again. We all wore that look in the late 50s, early 60s.

                 

Looking at Martin through black eyes

Name change for Zimmerman?

Don’t feed the trolls

The definition of a troll is rather fluid and subjective.  After one or two comments from an anonymous commenter who has read one or two points but didn’t finish, and almost 10 years of blogging,  plus 5 years on Usenet Forums, I can spot them.  No explanation satisfies a troll, s/he usually just proceeds with the whining, accusations, name-calling, so I don’t give them cheese with their whine and I don’t call them a troll if I know their identity.  Trolls usually don’t bother with my recipes, book reviews, health reports, etc.  Abortion, Obama, and environmentalism seem to bring them out from under the bridge.  Most recently deleted have to do with their not reading the evidence on the Martin Zimmerman trial.  From Wikipedia:

As noted in an OS News article titled "Why People Troll and How to Stop Them" (January 25, 2012), "The traditional definition of trolling includes intent. That is, trolls purposely disrupt forums. This definition is too narrow. Whether someone intends to disrupt a thread or not, the results are the same if they do.^[3][4] Others have addressed the same issue, e.g., Claire Hardaker, in her Ph.D. thesis^[4] "Trolling in asynchronous computer-mediated communication: From user discussions to academic definitions",^[9] and Dr. Phil. Popular recognition of the existence (and prevalence) of non-deliberate, "accidental trolls", has been documented widely, in sources as diverse as the Urban Dictionary,^[10] Nicole Sullivan's keynote speech at the 2012 Fluent Conference, titled "Don't Feed the Trolls"^[11] Gizmodo,^[12] online opinions on the subject written by Silicon Valley executives^[13] and comics.^[14]

If it weren’t for low class, she’d have no class at all

No wonder MSNBC has low ratings. . . Melissa Harris-Perry.

Life was tough in private schools . . .

West on Obama as a victim

Sometimes I think Obama tries too hard to get street creds.  The maudlin victim response to the Zimmerman verdict takes me back to the days when Sharpton and Jackson thought he wasn’t black enough because he didn’t make a racial incident part of his campaign, and he talked down to black audiences.  I always thought he had a really poor “black accent,” and had to fake the walk, the talk, and the emotion. He was raised white in a multi-racial culture and attended private schools.  Some kids have it tough. 

Yes, we can blame Bush for this—the ethanol mess.

In 2007 the Bush Administration and Congress [Democratic] mandated how much ethanol the oil and gas industry must purchase each year to be blended into gasoline. . . but gasoline consumption went down, not up and if the blends get any higher, they destroy engines.  So now we’ve got a ridiculous, complicated system of buying renewable energy credits, plus we’re damaging the environment and burning corn when people are hungry while raising the cost of gasoline.  The smartest thing to do is repeal it—and now we can blame Obama, because we know he never does the smart thing.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323309404578611842837454104.html

“By dramatically raising the price of corn, the federal corn ethanol mandate has, in just the last four years, contributed to the conversion of 23 million acres from wetland and grassland – an area the size of Indiana – to cropland. In fact, thanks to the corn ethanol mandate, we have lost more than wetlands and grasslands in the last four years than in the previous 40.

By encouraging farmers to plow up wetlands and grasslands, the mandate is causing more carbon to be released into the atmosphere, consuming more water to irrigate crops, causing more fertilizer to wash off farm fields and destroying more habitat that supports wildlife – and millions of jobs.

What’s more, burning corn ethanol in gasoline releases more benzene, a known carcinogen, and other toxic air pollutants that have been linked to asthma, bronchitis and other respiratory ailments.”

http://www.ewg.org/agmag/2013/02/corn-ethanol-bad-farmers-consumers-and-environment

What happened to Detroit?

Kevin D. Williamson writes at National Review, comparing Chattanooga and Detroit.

“[Detroit] has for years proved unable or unwilling to provide the basic services people expect from municipal authorities: While political cronies got fat, the people of Detroit were left with some of the worst schools in the country, some of the most dangerous streets in the country, and a mass-transit system that is a non-functioning mess. Not that you’d want to start a business there, but if you did, its licensing and regulatory agencies run the gamut from incompetent to corrupt.

So the people of Detroit went on strike. They did not picket city hall or demand a sit-down with the mayor. They packed up and left, taking their businesses, their innovation, and their tax dollars with them. The powers that be in Detroit can rob people blind, but they cannot make them stay.  As a result of this, Detroit has lost nearly two-thirds of its population. . .

Of its $11 billion in unsecured debt, the great majority — $9 billion — is owed to pensions and health-benefit plans for the same public-sector incompetents who helped bring the city to its knees in the first place. Detroit’s ruling class is a parasite that has outgrown its host.“

On the 40th anniversary of the 1967 Detroit riots, from which the city never recovered.