NH Mom Gets Prison for Abusing Daughter - Updated

(Nashua, New Hampshire) Yesterday in Hillsborough County Superior Court, 37-year-old Theresa Bergeron pleaded guilty to child abuse and falsifying evidence in a deal with the prosecution which allows her to avoid a trial.

Bergeron admitted to various abuse charges committed against her 12-year-old daughter plus charges she impeded a police investigation. Consequently, she was sentenced to prison.

During the 2- to 10-year concurrent prison sentence for the five separate abuse crimes, Bergeron will not be allowed contact with her daughter. For falsifying evidence during a police investigation of the abuse, Bergeron received a suspended 3½- to 7-year sentence in return for good behavior.

Hillsborough County Superior Court Judge William Groff said he wanted to impose a longer sentence. Yet he added that the deal Bergeron struck will spare the girl further pain and allow her to rebuild her life.

It's notable that this was Bergeron's second plea deal in the case. The first was scrapped after she was found to have violated bail conditions. It's also notable that Bergeron has a previous conviction for felony child abuse for shaking another daughter in the early-1990s and inflicting permanent brain damage. For the earlier conviction, Bergeron was given a suspended sentence and counseling. I'd suggest that the counseling was a waste of time.

Regarding Bergeron's housemate and girlfriend Chrisias France, she awaits trial for failing to report abuse, hindering prosecution of the Bergeron and felony endangering the welfare of a child.



* * * * *
Mom Accused of Abusing Daughter, 10
[Previous 6/25/07 post]
(Nashua, New Hampshire) In December 2006, 35-year-old local mother Theresa Bergeron was arrested and charged with second-degree assault for abusing her 10-year-old daughter.

School officials noticed the girl was bruised, limping and falling asleep in class. As a consequence, they started asking questions.

The girl first told a teacher's assistant at the school, and later an investigator, that her mother had made her stand in one spot in her home from 3 p.m. the previous day until 8 that morning, and had sprayed her with water bottle throughout the night keep her awake, according to court documents. The girl told investigators that the standing was punishment for passing gas, and that she was required to write a sentence over and over on 24 pages while standing.

The girl also told investigators that her mother locked her in her bedroom at night without access to a bathroom and that she was forced to urinate in a heating vent. The girl's fourth-grade teacher told investigators that the girl came to school with a sign on her backpack that said, "I wear diapers," explaining that her mother made her wear a diaper that day after locking her in her room without bathroom access, court records stated.

Bergeron was booked and released on bail. The daughter was removed from the home by child protective services.

In the latest development, Bergeron's significant other, 44-year-old Chrisias France, has been charged with failing to report abuse, hindering prosecution of the girl's mother and felony endangering the welfare of a child. Authorities believe that France took part in the abuse and helped cover up Bergeron's actions.

France is scheduled to be arraigned on July 5th in Hillsborough County Superior Court.


[Update 6/24/08]

Bergeron's bail has been revoked and she was sent to jail to await trial.

Bergeron had been free on $10,000 bail since her arrest in 2006, but Hillsborough County Superior Court Judge William Groff found Bergeron had violated the conditions of her release by continuing to live with her partner and co-defendant, Chrisias France, after she was ordered to have no contact last year.

"There is no question she was advised of this condition. There's no question of the importance of this condition," Groff said. "She knew about these conditions, and she just disregarded them."

The prosecutor, Assistant County Attorney Paula Philbrook, argued that Bergeron poses a potential threat to any child, citing a 1996 felony child abuse conviction in Massachusetts involving a different child.

No date indicated for Bergeron's trial. France is scheduled for trial next month.

Obama Rejected as Namesake for School

(Charleston, West Virginia) The Charleston Board of Education has announced that the new $13.5 million school to be built at the corner of Kanawha Boulevard and Florida Street will be named West Side Elementary School. Suggestions from students, faculty, staff, and community members were considered in the naming process.

According to community leader Pastor Matthew Watts:

The West Side name was the second choice of the students of the new school. Their first choice, Barrack Obama Elementary, was eliminated after some controversy. Watts says there were good intentions on the process to select a name, but the process itself was flawed.

"I do not believe that the children should have participated in the naming of the school,” said Watts. [...]

"I'd expect the kids to come back and say, 'Barack Obama, Lebron James, and Kobe Bryant.' That's the world in which they live,” said Watts. "But that's not the way you come to a consensus on public policy."

Watts believes the school board unintentionally turned the naming into a popularity contest that did not serve the best interest of the school.

Unfortunately, Pastor Watts, I suggest America elected a President in just that manner.

Companion post at The Jawa Report.

Toronto Flummoxed by Bags and Cups

(Toronto, Ontario) While the Canadian economy is in the dumper just like the rest of the world, the brain trust leadership in Toronto is worrying about plastic bags and discarded coffee cups.

Just when one would want political leadership to remove trade impediments, Toronto's city leaders are doing their best to nit-pick businesses and the citizenry.

Toronto has ordered retailers to charge customers 5 cents each for plastic shopping bags in June, and some store owners have been asking whether they'll have to charge sales tax.

Those who have asked the city for legal guidance have come away empty-handed.

"Our legal (department) doesn't provide legal opinions to anyone but the city," said Patricia Barrett, of the city's solid waste department.

So, Toronto is in full sky-is-falling, global-warming panic mode and charging forward but not really sure where the end is.

Meanwhile, the 40-member Toronto Coffee Cup Disposal Task Force has dedicated six months and $50,000 in consultant fees to conclude that there is no easy answer to the "problem" of recycling discarded coffee cups.

City staff said customers who bring their own cups should get a 20-cent discount on tea or coffee drinks. They also said paper cups with plastic lids should be banned, because paper recyclers complain the lids contaminate the paper.

The recommendations didn't fly.

Toronto council gave in to a furious lobbying effort by the takeout industry. Instead of making a decision, council set up a city-industry task force and gave it an April deadline.

Consequently, the city council meetings are blah blah, plastic bags, blah blah, coffee cups and people are losing jobs as wealth evaporates in a worldwide economic downturn.

Accelerated sea-level rise?


I mentioned a few days ago a report that sea levels are rising faster than predicted by the IPCC. There is another such report just out here.

Below is an email on the subject from Professor Dr. Nils-Axel Morner [morner@pog.nu], a leading world authority on sea levels and coastal erosion who headed the Department of Paleogeophysics &Geodynamics at Stockholm University

Misused data! Satellite altimetry 1993-2000 was horizontal - the same data set + 2000-2003 was tilted. On top of the physical corrections (giving horizontallity) they added "personal correction" to fit IPCCs claims. What do we call this? If not falsification? See my scientific papers - best: Global and Planetary Change 62 (2008) 219-220.

Excerpt from the paper concerned below -- pointing out that the raw data on sea levels shows that they have in fact been flat. It is only the addition of various "corrections" -- some of which are quite arbitrary -- that suggests rising sea levels.

Comment on comment by Nerem et al. (2007) on "Estimating future sea level changes from past records"

by Nils-Axel Moerner

First let us clear up the origin of my Fig. 2 (in Moerner, 2004). It is a product of the CLS Company printed in MEDIAS (2000, Fig. 1.2; also available on the net at Aviso, 2000). My curve was a redrawing of this graph. This curve, spanning the time from October 1992 to April 2000, does not record any sea level rise; only a variability plus one (or more) ENSO signals.

That was the point of my picture. It should be noted that this graph includes the technical adjustments (including the drift factor of Mitchum, 2000, Fig. 10) illustrated by the lower arrow in Fig. 1. Later the same graph re-appears with a strong tilt (Aviso, 2003; cf. Leuliette et al., 2004; Moerner, 2005). Why is that?

It is because of the introduction of additional calibrations (Mitchum, 2000; Leuliette et al., 2004; Cazenave & Nerem, 2004) - and those "calibrations" are subjective interpretations (Fig. 1; upper arrow); not objective readings. Consequently, they are opinion-dependent. "We adopt the rate given by Douglas (1991,1995) of 1.8~0.1mm/yr", Mitchum (2000) states. This rate, however, is widely debated and far from generally accepted. Especially not in the geological sea level community (cf. Moerner, 2004, Fig. 4), where we realize that the tide gauges quite frequently are installed in unstable local position, and I quote (from Moerner et al., 2004): "Tide gauge records, however, do not provide simple and straight-forward measures of regional eustatic sea level. They are often (not to say usually) dominated by the effects of local compaction and local loading subsidence.

With this perspective, our multiple morphological and sedimentological records appear more reliable and conclusive" (cf. Moerner, 2007). This makes the requited "correction" for land motion at the tide gauge very delicate and subjective. The nice and interesting thing with the graph under discussion (Moerner, 2004, Fig. 2) is that it represents the readings before all these interpretational "corrections".

Posted by John Ray.

City Wants Stricter BB Gun Laws

(Grand Island, Nebraska) The Grand Island Chief of Police, Steve Lamken, has proposed a code change to the city council. Specifically, the city council is being asked to create legislation which would outlaw loaded BB, pellet or paintball guns in cars.

Apparently, the change is desired to tackle a serious vandalism problem in the city. Young troublemakers are being blamed for riding around town and shooting out windows, many windows, with their BB, pellet and paintball guns. Property owners are suffering losses in the tens of thousands of dollars.

It is a problem Grand Island Police wants to fix. And the chief said he thinks he has an idea by making it illegal to carry loaded bb, pellet and paintball guns in cars.

"I would hope it would bring some caution to driving around with them," said Lamken.

Because if they are caught with them loaded, the guns will be taken away for 60 days, held until proven they have not been used in any vandalism cases.

"I think it is a good idea to have it on there, they do not need them loaded in their car," said Joyce May of Wayne's Pawn Shop.

Frankly, I believe that severe punishment works better. Form a task force to catch a few vandals, elevate the charges to conspiracy to terrorize the city, bring in the feds and send them to prison for a few years. The police would probably just have to do it once since word would get around that breaking windows gets you prison.

Additionally, I'd investigate the guy who sells replacement glass.

Companion post at GunWatch.

Freedom in America

A study conducted by George Mason University ranks the 50 states based upon the amount of personal, social and economic freedom each state's citizens enjoy. The following is a graphic representation of the results of the study with each state shown in relation to other states.




Interestingly, states with lesser freedom reportedly experience net outflow of residents over time. Migrating populations trend customarily to states with more freedom. Imagine that.

More here.

Prison in Boy Kidnapping and Sex Case - Updated

(Tucson, Arizona) Thirty-four-year-old Denise Philpott admitted to kidnapping the 15-year-old boy from the group home, taking him across state lines, and having sex with him.

As a consequence, she was sentenced to five years in prison.

Philpott was also ordered to participate in sex offender counseling, receive mental health treatment and register as a sex offender.


* * * * *
Woman Kidnaps Boy Sex-Toy
[Previous 7/5/06 post]
(Tucson, Arizona) Here's a different slant on the woman-with-boy sex story.

From azstarnet.com:

A 32-year-old Sierra Vista woman was arrested on charges that she kidnapped a 15-year-old boy and took him to Indiana while being involved in a sexual relationship with him, officials said.

Denise Green, also known as Denise Philpott, took a boy who was living at Ohana House, a group home for teenagers in Sierra Vista, to Martinsville, Ind., west of Indianapolis, said agent Deborah McCarley, an FBI spokeswoman.

It is believed that Green met the boy last year while she was working as a behavioral-health technician at the group home, said Sandy Raynor, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Attorney's Office in Phoenix. It was while she worked there that she began a sexual relationship with the boy, McCarley said.

On June 14, Green reportedly took the boy and her four children to Indiana by car. The boy was reported missing that evening.

Apparently, behavioral-health technology has something to do with engaging in sex with teen boys. That's a new one on me. I imagine we'll hear more about Denise Green, aka Philpott, as the story develops.

In the meantime, Green/Philpott is in federal custody on a measly $1,000 bond. If convicted of kidnapping, she faces 20 years to life in prison.

Tip: Don Morgenstern

Ann Coulter - Bill Maher in Debate

Last night at the Radio City Music Hall in New York City, Ann Coulter and Bill Maher faced off in a debate moderated by Mark Halperin of Time magazine.

S.E.Cupp was there and she reports the action here.

In a nutshell, Radio City was sardine-packed with liberals and they were not polite.

Obnoxious name given to morally troublesome act




Soon after President Barack Obama signed an executive order lifting the ban on the use of embryonic stem cells in medical research, the wizards behind the White House web site posted the photo above. Though I find it less troubling than the president's continuing assault on the unborn, the file name (hero_stemcell_main2.jpg) under which someone at the White House saved the photo of the signing ceremony this afternoon is disturbingly creepy.

I discovered the file name when I went to save the photo to my computer. Click here to see a screen shot which shows the file name for the photo highlighted in blue as I was in the process of saving the photo to my computer.

To imply that President Obama is somehow heroic by signing a measure that lifts a ban on the slaughter of human embryos for scientific purposes goes beyond the pale. Such an amateurish action should not, however, surprise anyone familiar with Obama's socialist agenda (a.k.a., "Obamalism") and his follower's blind allegiance to "Dear Leader."

Post above recycled from Bob McCarty (With permission).


Posted by John Ray.

Texas Mom Gets 16+ Years Prison for Meth

(Waco, Texas) In January 2009, a 23-year-old local mother, Tera Caldwell, pleaded guilty to manufacture of methamphetamine and possession of pseudoephedrine with intent to manufacture methamphetamine.

According to U.S. Attorney Johnny Sutton:

“By pleading guilty, Caldwell admitted that from January 2007 to October 2008, she conspired with others to manufacture methamphetamine and to obtain large amounts of pseudoephedrine from local pharmacies throughout Central Texas to be used in the manufacturing of methamphetamine."

Furthermore, since testing indicated that Caldwell had exposed her three children to the methamphetamine, a sentencing enhancement provision was put into effect. As a consequence, last week federal District Judge Walter Smith sentenced Caldwell to almost 17 years (200 months) in federal prison.

Caldwell's husband, Patrick Conn, also pleaded guilty to the charges and is due to be sentenced on April 1. He faces a possible 30 years in prison.

California Teacher's Aide Accused of Sex Offenses

(Ceres, California) A 35-year-old special-needs teacher's aide at Ceres High School, Stacey Goodloe, was arrested last Friday for allegedly engaging in sex with a male student.

Goodloe was arrested in connection with three felonies: being older than 21 and having intercourse with someone younger than 16; being older than 21 and participating in oral sex with someone younger than 16; and committing a lewd or lascivious act with a victim aged 14 or 15.

Goodloe was booked into custody at the Stanislaus County Jail and later released. The school district placed her on administrative leave.

CNN, Communism and Barack Obama

I suggest that anyone with only a hint of political acumen shouldn't be surprised by this report.

The presidential candidate of the Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front (FMLN), the communist revolutionaries in El Salvador the Reagan administration battled in the 1980s, is, a Monday Washington Post story noted, “a former correspondent for CNN en Espanol.”

In the March 9 article, “In El Salvador Vote, Big Opportunity for Leftists,” reporter William Booth relayed from San Salvador that the journalist-turned-politician “considers himself to be El Salvador's Barack Obama.”

So, there you go. The mainstream media, communism and Barack Obama tied nicely together in two paragraphs. A red bow seems appropriate.

Tip: CN

Alabama Teacher Allegedly Grabs Student Butt

(Robertsdale, Alabama) A cosmetology teacher at South Baldwin Center for Technology, Verna Bennett, surrendered to police on an outstanding warrant to face charges that she inappropriately touched a Foley High School student.

Authorities were alerted after the 15-year-old female student told her parents that Bennett had "grabbed her butt." Bennett has been charged with harassment.

Students from around the county attend South Baldwin Center for Technology for part-time career and technical courses.

Bennett was booked into custody and later released on $500 bond.

Ban Sought on Eating Obama

(Bandung, Indonesia) The Indonesian Consumer Foundation is urging authorities to ban a "potentially dangerous local snack" called Obama. The consumer watchdog indicates that the snack may be harmful because it's packaged with a small toy which could be eaten by small children.



Obama Snack
As can be seen, Obama is waving a flag in one hand that displays "SNACK ANTI TERRORIST" and the other hand seems to be dropping a grenade into a garbage can which has "BOOM" coming out of it. Odd? I'll say. I don't believe the jihadis view Obama as a strong enemy of terrorism so neither do I.

Interestingly, there's a video showing an Indonesian shop where Obama snacks are sold. Check it out.


Good stuff if one understands the local language.

Curiously, although this story has been reported by a number of sources around the globe, none that I've seen identify what the snack is. Looks like a cheese puff in the video.

The local authorities in the town of Bandung, Jawa Bariat, Indonesia, will decide whether the snack stays or goes. Apparently, use of a state leader's image in packaging is contrary to some government regulation.

Tip: CN

Heh

The rumblings are out there. In two months, Barack Obama has done more to buttress Jimmy Carter's legacy as President than Jimmy Carter and his minions have done in almost thirty years.

PURIM


Tomorrow is the festival of Purim. Purim must be particularly significant for Jews this year. It commemorates the deliverance of the Jewish people of the ancient Persian Empire from Haman's plot to annihilate them, as recorded in the Biblical Book of Esther.

This year another Persian empire is now posing a dire threat to Israel. The mad Mullahs of Iran now have enough fissile material to make a nuclear device and they have of course vowed to wipe Israel off the map. If I were a Jew I would go easy on the celebrations this year and do a lot of praying. Come to think of it, Purim might be a good day for an Israeli raid on the Iranian nuclear installations. Maybe I shouldn't have said that.


Posted by John Ray.

Obama Reaches Out to Taliban?

Okay, let me see if I perceive this correctly. The Taliban is a compilation of militant guerilla groups which inhabit the mountainous tribal regions of Afghanistan and Pakistan.

The Taliban is known to enforce the strictest interpretation of Sharia law ever seen in the Muslim world. The Taliban prohibits schooling of females. The Taliban kills with the slightest provocation and, although it's under the radar, the Taliban membership is guilty of widespread pederasty.

And now I hear that President Obama wants to sit down and talk to these murdering barbarians.

Well, let's speculate about the issues on the table. The Taliban representative (it's unknown who that would be since the Taliban is not a sovereign entity) says:

"We want all foreign troops out of Afghanistan. It is Allah's land.

We want all foreign troops and influences out of Pakistan. It is Allah's land.

We want all Israelis marched into the Mediterranean Sea and drowned. Palestine is Allah's land.

We want insults to Islam to be declared a capital crime by the United Nations and ratified by all members of the Security Council. All free speech laws are to be revised to conform to the requirements of the Qu'ran.

President Obama, thank you for setting up this meeting so that we could voice our demands. Frankly, we thought you knew. Now, we are prepared to hear your demands."

Sitting cross-legged on a blanket in a tribal village square, President Obama looks around and mentions how the bright sunlight at the 8,ooo-foot level forces his eyes to water.

"I want to help the Taliban make the changes necessary to take full advantage of the richness of modern life. I offer you hope for the future."

[interrupted by Taliban rep] One more thing, Mr. President. We want $100 billion each year as foreign aid."

[Obama] "Okay, we can do that. Anything else?"

President Obama then leaves and later, at a press briefing, it's announced that negotiations with the Taliban are going smoothly.

Companion post at The Jawa Report.

Arizona Teacher & Hubby Busted for Dope

(Phoenix, Arizona) A 47-year-old sixth-grade teacher in the Isaac School District in west Phoenix, Michelle Coniff, and her 49-year-old husband, John, a respiratory therapist, were arrested Saturday after Arizona officers discovered 14 pounds of marijuana in their vehicle during a traffic stop.

They had been pulled over for an improper display of a license plate.

Officers said the occupants were acting unusual and officers also smelled a strong marijuana odor.

A drug sniffing dog was brought in and it led officers to a duffel bag containing 14 pounds of hydroponically grown marijuana.

Each Coniff was arrested on suspicion of possession of marijuana for sale, transportation of marijuana for sale and conspiracy to distribute and sell marijuana.

Strangely, one might think that Mr. Coniff, as a respiratory therapist, would not be a smoker.

Censored: The fact that available data contradict a vital Warmist assumption

Because the temperature rise across the entire 20th century was trivial (just over one half of one degree), the best bet is that the rise (if any) over the 21st century will be trivial too. Warmists avoid that obvious truth by postulating various "amplifying" factors that will make the 21st century rise much greater than that seen in the 20th century. And chief nominee as an amplifying factor is cloud cover and water vapour generally. Sadly for the Warmists, evidence is accumulating that those very factors have in fact a minimizing rather than an amplifying effect. The entire edifice of Warmism is built on the sand of an unproven theory which looks like being in fact the reverse of the truth


Garth Paltridge writes:

Back in March of 2008, three of us sent off a manuscript to the Journal of Climate. It was a straightforward paper reporting the trends of humidity in the middle and upper troposphere as they (the trends) appear at face value in the NCEP monthly-average reanalysis data. NCEP data on atmospheric behaviour over the last 50 years are readily available on the web and are something of a workhorse for much modern research on meteorology and climate. The paper did two things:

(1) It pointed out that, according to the NCEP data, the zonal-average tropical and mid-latitude humidities have decreased over the last 35 years at altitudes above the 850mb pressure level - that is, in the middle and upper troposphere, roughly above the top of the convective boundary layer. NCEP humidity information derives ultimately from the international network of balloon-borne radiosondes. And one must say immediately that radiosonde humidity data have more than their fair share of problems. So does the NCEP process of using an operational weather forecasting model to integrate the actual measurements into a meteorologically coherent set of data presented on a regular grid.

(2) It made the point (not an original point, but on the other hand one that is not widely known even among the cognoscenti) that water vapour feedback in the global warming story is very largely determined by the response of water vapour in the middle and upper troposphere. Total water vapour in the atmosphere may increase as the temperature of the surface rises, but if at the same time the mid- to upper-level concentration decreases then water vapour feedback will be negative. (There are hand-waving physical arguments that might explain how a decoupling such as that could occur).

Climate models (for various obscure reasons) tend to maintain constant relative humidity at each atmospheric level, and therefore have an increasing absolute humidity at each level as the surface and atmospheric temperatures increase. This behaviour in the upper levels of the models produces a positive feedback which more than doubles the temperature rise calculated to be the consequence of increasing atmospheric CO2.

The bottom line is that, if (repeat if) one could believe the NCEP data `as is', water vapour feedback over the last 35 years has been negative. And if the pattern were to continue into the future, one would expect water vapour feedback in the climate system to halve rather than double the temperature rise due to increasing CO2.

Satellite data from the HIRS instruments on the NOAA polar orbiting satellites tend (`sort of', only in the tropics, and only for part of the time) to support the climate model story. The `ifs and buts' of satellite information about upper tropospheric humidity are of the same order as that from balloon radiosondes.

Anyway, our paper concluded by suggesting that, in view of the extreme significance of upper-level humidity to the climate change story, the international radiosonde data on upper-level humidity should not be `written off' without a serious attempt at abstracting the best possible humidity signal from within the noise of instrumental and operational changes at each of the relevant radiosonde stations. After all, we are not exactly over-endowed with data on the matter. The attempt would be similar in principle to the current efforts at abstracting a believable global warming signal from the networks of surface-temperature observations.

Suffice it to say that after 3 or 4 months the paper was knocked back. This largely because of an unbelievably vitriolic, and indeed rather hysterical, review from someone who let slip that

"the only object I can see for this paper is for the authors to get something in the peer-reviewed literature which the ignorant can cite as supporting lower climate sensitivity than the standard IPCC range".

We argued a bit with the editor about why he took notice of such a review. We are not exactly novices in the research game, and can say with reasonable authority that when faced with such an emotive review the editor should simply have ignored it and sent the paper off to someone else. The argument didn't get far. In particular we couldn't get a guarantee that a re-submission would not involve the same reviewer. And in any event the conditions for re-submission effectively amounted to a requirement that we first prove the models and the satellites wrong.

A couple of weeks after the knock-back, and for unrelated reasons, two of us went to a small workshop on water vapour held at LDEO in New Jersey, whereat we told the tale. The audience was split as to whether the existence of the NCEP trends in humidity should be reported in the literature. Those `against' (among them a number of people from GISS) simply said that the radiosonde data were too `iffy' to report the trends publicly in a political climate where there are horrible people who might make sinful use of them. Those `for' simply said that scientific reportage shouldn't be constrained by the politically correct. The matter was dropped. I found after the event that the journal editor had come (I think specifically) to hear the talk. He didn't bother to introduce himself.

I guess the story doesn't amount to much. Perhaps it is significant only in that it shows how naive we were to imagine that climate scientists might welcome the challenge to examine properly and in detail even the smell of a possibility that global warming might not be as bad as it is made out to be. Silly us.

After some kerfuffle, the paper was accepted by "Theoretical and Applied Climatology" and appeared on February 26 on the journal's web site. (One can if so inclined, and if one has personal or institutional access to the journal, find it here). We presume it will be ignored.

Being paranoiac from way back, we wonder at the happy chance by which a one-page general-interest article appeared in `Science' on February 20. With some self-referencing, it extolled the virtue of the latest modelling research, and of new(?) satellite observations of short-term, large amplitude, water vapour variability, which (say the authors) strongly support model predictions of long-term positive water vapour feedback. Well, maybe. It would be easy enough to argue against that conclusion. The paranoia arises because of another issue. We know that at least one of the authors is well aware of the contrary story told by the raw balloon data. But there is no mention of it in their article.

More HERE (See the original for links)

Posted by John Ray.

Florida Teacher Pinched for Porn Sent to Boy

(St. Petersburg, Florida) A 32-year-old teacher at Azalea Middle School, Christy Lynn Martin, was arrested this week by St. Petersburg Police officers for allegedly sending pornography to a 14-year-old boy. The boy's mother alerted the authorities to the alleged offense.

St. Petersburg Police Department detectives conducted their investigation throughout the day and discovered photographs of a pornographic nature from the teacher that were sent to the boy's cellular phone.

The boy told investigators that he had been involved in a relationship with Martin, but the exact details of that relationship are not clear at this point.

Later that afternoon, detectives interviewed Martin and she admitted to sending the pornographic photographs to the 14-year-old boy.

Martin was booked into custody with bond set at $20,000.

Clacking Erasers with Two Female Teachers

The stories of female teachers and other educators having sex with students have become commonplace with probably more than 100 websites devoting time reporting and following the individual cases.

We've seen instances of female teachers having sex with not only one student but many. I recall one case where a female teacher mixed it up with five grade school boys and another one where the teacher did the school baseball team. Female teachers have even kidnapped students and fled to parts unknown including Mexico. Same-sex offenses are noticeable but the majority are heterosexual.

Encompassing all disciplines, the educators have included English, history, science and special education teachers. Coaches and physical education teachers, along with librarians, custodians, office workers, PTA members, school administrators and even cafeteria ladies have been represented.

To be fair, though, the offenders represent a tiny but, understandably, high profile segment of the entire education profession.

All that noted, it's worth mentioning that the latest twist in the soap opera world of teacher-student sex stories would be the adventures of a 13-year-old junior high school boy who was allegedly forced into sex by TWO of his female teachers, both 30-something. And, as astonishing as it seems, neither teacher was aware of the other.

It's more than logical to assume that the boy has developed a distorted perspective regarding male-female relationships. It's likely reasonable to assume he's also developed a swagger.

One must wonder what taboo will next be violated.

Companion post at The Jawa Report.

Dominicanas

In the spirit of cultural diversity and international understanding, meet Maria Montez, Zoé Saldaña, Michelle Rodríguez and Dania Ramírez. All are making news in the entertainment world as up and coming stars.


Dominicanas - Babes of the Dominican Republic
This post was prompted by an acquaintance who mentioned that the only good things to ever come out of the Dominican Republic are baseball players like Chico Esquela and Manny Ramirez. Obviously, the acquaintance is wrong.

Louisiana Teacher Arrested for Sex with Boy

(Glenmora, Louisiana) A 27-year-old teacher with the Allen Parish School District, Tiffany Nicole Steedman, was arrested Thursday for allegedly engaging in sex with a 16-year-old boy.

Steedman has been charged with carnal knowledge of a juvenile and repeated telephone harassment.

The warrant for her arrest was obtained after a Plainview-area woman accused Steedman of having sex with her 16-year-old son and then communicating with him after she’d been forbidden to do so.

The reported sex acts happened at Steedman’s Joe Ray Road home and not at a Rapides or Allen Parish school, the Sheriff’s Office reported.

Steedman was booked into custody at the Rapides Parish Jail and later released on bond.

Must not disagree with sharpie Sharpton and his NAACP brethren

We read:

"For years, New York City's flagship main Public Library has annually honored a group of "literary lions." Long a civil rights and civil liberties lion, Michael Meyers, born in Harlem, is a former assistant director of the NAACP; personal assistant to its late executive director, Roy Wilkins; and a protege of one of my mentors, Dr. Kenneth Clark. Clark's research influenced the Supreme Court's Brown v. Board of Education ruling that declared public-school segregation unconstitutional. Yet on Feb. 21, at the annual meeting in New York of the century-old NAACP, Meyers, refused permission to speak, was removed by NAACP security.

The meeting was held in the midst of a furor of protest by the Rev. Al Sharpton and other black public figures over a cartoon by the New York Post's Sean Delonas showing a chimpanzee shot and killed by the police (as had just actually happened to a pet chimpanzee gone berserk). Said one of the cops: "They'll have to find someone else to write the next stimulus bill."

Interpreting this as a racist attack on President Barack Obama, NAACP President Benjamin Todd Jealous and its chairman, Julian Bond, had joined the angry chorus of protesters calling for a boycott of the New York Post, and the firing of the cartoonist and the paper's editor. They have worked to make this a national issue if these demands were not met.

Meyers, a widely publicized defender of the First Amendment, had publicly objected to "this exercise in sheer racial rhetoric," adding: "Demagoguery is not the standard of effective leadership in addressing serious social justice issues." Meyers has often written and lectured on race relations, police abuse, housing and education. And as a passionate civil libertarian, he said of the rage to punish those connected with the cartoon: "All political pundits deserve a wide berth for social criticism and for parodying and poking fun at and criticizing our political leaders, no matter the skin color or race of the public official."

Source

Posted by John Ray.

Smuggling by Ultralight

(Tucson, Arizona) It doesn't take a leap of imagination to figure that drug smugglers would use ultralight aircraft sooner or later.


Ultralight with 350 pounds of marijuana
intercepted by government agents.
According to Michael Kostelnik of Customs and Border Protection (CBP), ultralight use in smuggling drugs is not new but it's growing.

Kentucky Woman Accused of Sex with Boy

(Nelson County, Kentucky) A 35-year-old local woman, Frances Nelson, has been arrested for allegedly engaging in sex with a 14-year-old boy and for allegedly supplying drugs to four other juveniles.

Authorities were alerted by a complaint being filed against Nelson regarding sex with a juvenile male. Nelson faces charges of third-degree rape, sodomy and unlawful transaction with a minor.

Reportedly, Nelson admitted to investigators that she committed illegal acts with the 14-year-old boy.

Morocco Cuts Diplomatic Ties with Iran

(Rabat, Morocco) Last month, an adviser to Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said that Iran had sovereignty over Bahrain. In a show of Sunni Arab unity against Shia-dominated Iran, Morocco's King Mohammed sent a letter to Bahrain's King Hamad Bin Isa al-Khalifa.

"We deem these remarks absurd and they contradict blatantly international law principles and rules as well as the values of peaceful co-existence and good neighbourliness advocated by our tolerant Islamic religion," Mohammed wrote to Hamad.

In addition, the Kingdom of Morocco broke off diplomatic relations with Iran after "some inappropriate language" was reportedly directed toward Morocco by Iran.

The controversy encapsulates the belligerent nature of the current Iranian government along with the ever-stewing conflict between the Sunni and Shia factions of Islam. It also demonstrates that radical Muslims don't need infidels to express hatred. Followers of the religion of peace have a perennial less-filling/tastes-great type of mindset to justify killing each other when infidels are not around.

Helluva Deal

(East Stroudsburg, Pennsylvania) A local school district no longer needed extra classroom space so it was decided that six (6) trailers, valued new at $60,000 each, would be sold on eBay. According to District Superintendent Rachel Heath, it was expected that each trailer would fetch $5,000 to $10,000 at auction.

Unfortunately, nobody bothered to set a reserve price so the first trailer went for $1. According to Heath, the remaining trailers won't be sold on eBay.

Heh.

Seattle P-I Going Bye-Bye

The Hearst Corp. plans to discontinue the print version of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer and offer it as an online-only publication.

UK Agrees to Hezbollah Talks

I don't understand this move.

Britain overturned its policy on a key Middle East issue yesterday by agreeing to talk to Hezbollah, the Lebanese Shia movement which fights Israel and is banned as a terrorist organisation by the US.

Bill Rammell, the Foreign Office minister, told MPs the government would authorise "carefully selected" contacts with the political wing of Hezbollah, which is represented in the Lebanese parliament. Other EU countries, including France, already deal with the group.

The move, urged privately by British diplomats for some time, may be partially intended to encourage the US to follow suit as Barack Obama's administration pursues a fresh approach of engagement with parties shunned by George Bush.

Fresh approach, eh? Didn't Neville Chamberlain use the methodology with Hitler? As I've read, it doesn't work.

Docs Seek to Ban Negative Comments by Patients

We read:

"The anonymous comment on the Web site RateMDs.com was unsparing: "Very unhelpful, arrogant," it said of a doctor. "Did not listen and cut me off, seemed much too happy to have power (and abuse it!) over suffering people."

Such reviews are becoming more common as consumer ratings services like Zagat's and Angie's List expand beyond restaurants and plumbers to medical care, and some doctors are fighting back.

They're asking patients to agree to what amounts to a gag order that bars them from posting negative comments online.

Source

Truth hurts?

Posted by John Ray.

Group Sex Hot Spot for Swingers

(Queensland, Australia) A fully-clothed man has caused outrage.

A TOURIST who refused to take his clothes off at a swinger sex party has been blamed for "a mini-riot" at a north Queensland nudist colony.

Police were called amid threats of violence and lewd behaviour and ordered the Brisbane man and his wife from the adults-only "anything goes" sex party.

The White Cockatoo resort at Mossman, near Port Douglas, is promoting swingers and sex parties in a month of hedonism for March in a bid to boost sagging tourism figures.

A month of hedonism. Wow!

Check out the gallery of naked folks.

Tip: slwlion

Client 9 Now Doing Real Estate

(Washington, D.C.) Former New York Governor Eliot Spitzer is working as a commercial real estate investor in the Washington area. In fact, he's doing business in the same city area that he did business with Ashley Dupree.

Heh.

Khat Blogging

(Dodge City, Kansas) A Dodge City resident originally from Somalia, Ahmed Abdulle, was arrested last Saturday for allegedly possessing khat.

Khat is an evergreen shrub that contains two controlled substances: cathinone (Schedule I) and cathine (Scheduled IV).

Khat is used for its stimulant effects by an estimated 10 million people, primarily in east Africa and the Arabian Peninsula. When consumed by chewing, smoking or brewing into tea, khat produces effects similar to methamphetamine or cocaine.

The fact that khat is used extensively in the regions around the Horn of Africa is not news nor is it news that khat is being smuggled into the U.S. However, it is newsworthy that khat is for sale in small-town mid-America. I suggest that distribution of the drug far exceeds any reporting about it.

Interestingly, it has been contended that virtually the entire populations of Somalia and Yemen begin each day with khat. By mid-afternoon, essentially every human, horizon to horizon, is half-lit which I believe contributes to the inability to govern the region effectively. Imagine for a moment, an entire region depending on law and order as defined by the khat-muddled brains of teen boys with AK-47s.

In any event, Ahmed Abdulle has been charged with possession of the drug with the intent to sell within 1,000 feet of a school, possession of paraphernalia and possession or distribution without a tax stamp. He was booked into custody and later released on $25,000 bond.

Ohio Teacher Guilty of Prostitution - Updated

(Bellefontaine, Ohio) Former fourth-grade teacher at Western Intermediate School Amber Carter openly admitted to moonlighting as a hooker while pleading guilty to solicitation.

As a result, Carter was sentenced to probation for two years and a $250 fine. A 30-day jail sentence was suspended.

Authorities said the 35-year-old advertised sex services online and agreed to meet a man who was working undercover for the Logan County sheriff's office. Police arrested Carter in a motel parking lot Feb. 10, shortly after she took a half-day of sick leave from her fourth-grade teaching job.

Carter's reaching career is likely over in all regards while her other job as a hooker will presumably be impeded by virtue of the conditions of her probation.

Obviously, the moral of this true-life case is: If you teach, don't hook or you'll do neither. (h/t SuidaeEmpathy)


* * * * *
Ohio Teacher Pinched for Prostitution
[Previous 2/11/09 post]
(Bellefontaine, Ohio) A 35-year-old fourth-grade teacher at the Western Intermediate School, Amber Carter, was arrested yesterday afternoon for alleged prostitution.

According to reports, Carter left her class during lunchtime to apparently meet a customer at a local Super 8 Motel.

It's alleged that Carter was using Craigslist to solicit customers online and an anonymous tip led Logan County Sheriff's investigators to set up a sting operation. When Carter showed up at the motel, she was arrested.

Carter was charged with prostitution and unauthorized use of property since she may have used her school computer to set up inappropriate meetings.

Tip: SuidaeEmpathy

Minnesota Teacher's Aide Accused of Sex with Boy

(Bloomington, Minnesota) A 35-year-old teacher's aide formerly at Kennedy High School, Dawne Lejeune Schwartz, has been issued a summons to appear in court and face charges that she had a sexual relationship with a 17-year-old student.

Initially, Schwartz denied having a relationship with the student but admitted to sending sexually explicit text messages to him, police said.

Later, Schwartz told police she had been seeing the boy since November and that they had sex on approximately 10 occasions at both her Bloomington home and at the boy's home while his parents were gone, according to a criminal complaint.

Schwartz is also a friend of the boys' parents and admitted she often drove him back and forth to school and took him to movies.

Schwartz had been a parent volunteer for the high school for four years before being fired on February 12 when allegations surfaced.

Woke Up This Mournin'

(Laurens County, South Carolina) A 25-year-old woman, Nicole Marie Loretta Leonard, goes wild at a funeral. I can't explain it.

[W]oman danced in front of the service, waved a wand around the casket, opened the lid, laid her hands on the deceased's head and struck the body with a wand, according to an incident report from the Laurens County Sheriff's Office.

Asked why, Leonard said, "... it was the right thing to do...."

Tip: CN

Obama is the new FDR

FDR turned a normal cyclic depression into the Great Depression by his anti-business policies

As 2009 opened, three weeks before Barack Obama took office, the Dow Jones Industrial Average closed at 9034 on January 2, its highest level since the autumn panic. Yesterday the Dow fell another 4.24% to 6763, for an overall decline of 25% in two months and to its lowest level since 1997. The dismaying message here is that President Obama's policies have become part of the economy's problem.

Americans have welcomed the Obama era in the same spirit of hope the President campaigned on. But after five weeks in office, it's become clear that Mr. Obama's policies are slowing, if not stopping, what would otherwise be the normal process of economic recovery. From punishing business to squandering scarce national public resources, Team Obama is creating more uncertainty and less confidence -- and thus a longer period of recession or subpar growth.

The Democrats who now run Washington don't want to hear this, because they benefit from blaming all bad economic news on President Bush. And Mr. Obama has inherited an unusual recession deepened by credit problems, both of which will take time to climb out of. But it's also true that the economy has fallen far enough, and long enough, that much of the excess that led to recession is being worked off. Already 15 months old, the current recession will soon match the average length -- and average job loss -- of the last three postwar downturns. What goes down will come up -- unless destructive policies interfere with the sources of potential recovery.

And those sources have been forming for some time. The prices of oil and other commodities have fallen by two-thirds since their 2008 summer peak, which has the effect of a major tax cut. The world is awash in liquidity, thanks to monetary ease by the Federal Reserve and other central banks. Monetary policy operates with a lag, but last year's easing will eventually stir economic activity.

Housing prices have fallen 27% from their Case-Shiller peak, or some two-thirds of the way back to their historical trend. While still high, credit spreads are far from their peaks during the panic, and corporate borrowers are again able to tap the credit markets. As equities were signaling with their late 2008 rally and January top, growth should under normal circumstances begin to appear in the second half of this year.

So what has happened in the last two months? The economy has received no great new outside shock. Exchange rates and other prices have been stable, and there are no security crises of note. The reality of a sharp recession has been known and built into stock prices since last year's fourth quarter.

What is new is the unveiling of Mr. Obama's agenda and his approach to governance. Every new President has a finite stock of capital -- financial and political -- to deploy, and amid recession Mr. Obama has more than most. But one negative revelation has been the way he has chosen to spend his scarce resources on income transfers rather than growth promotion. Most of his "stimulus" spending was devoted to social programs, rather than public works, and nearly all of the tax cuts were devoted to income maintenance rather than to improving incentives to work or invest.

His Treasury has been making a similar mistake with its financial bailout plans. The banking system needs to work through its losses, and one necessary use of public capital is to assist in burning down those bad assets as fast as possible. Yet most of Team Obama's ministrations so far have gone toward triage and life support, rather than repair and recovery.

AIG yesterday received its fourth "rescue," including $70 billion in Troubled Asset Relief Program cash, without any clear business direction. (See here.) Citigroup's restructuring last week added not a dollar of new capital, and also no clear direction. Perhaps the imminent Treasury "stress tests" will clear the decks, but until they do the banks are all living in fear of becoming the next AIG. All of this squanders public money that could better go toward burning down bank debt.

The market has notably plunged since Mr. Obama introduced his budget last week, and that should be no surprise. The document was a declaration of hostility toward capitalists across the economy. Health-care stocks have dived on fears of new government mandates and price controls. Private lenders to students have been told they're no longer wanted. Anyone who uses carbon energy has been warned to expect a huge tax increase from cap and trade. And every risk-taker and investor now knows that another tax increase will slam the economy in 2011, unless Mr. Obama lets Speaker Nancy Pelosi impose one even earlier.

Meanwhile, Congress demands more bank lending even as it assails lenders and threatens to let judges rewrite mortgage contracts. The powers in Congress -- unrebuked by Mr. Obama -- are ridiculing and punishing the very capitalists who are essential to a sustainable recovery. The result has been a capital strike, and the return of the fear from last year that we could face a far deeper downturn. This is no way to nurture a wounded economy back to health.

Listening to Mr. Obama and his chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, on the weekend, we couldn't help but wonder if they appreciate any of this. They seem preoccupied with going to the barricades against Republicans who wield little power, or picking a fight with Rush Limbaugh, as if this is the kind of economic leadership Americans want.

Perhaps they're reading the polls and figure they have two or three years before voters stop blaming Republicans and Mr. Bush for the economy. Even if that's right in the long run, in the meantime their assault on business and investors is delaying a recovery and ensuring that the expansion will be weaker than it should be when it finally does arrive.

Source. Background on FDR here, here, here, here and here

Posted by John Ray.

Minnesota Teacher Gets 10 Years for Sex with Schoolboy - Updated

(Crookston, Minnesota) After pleading guilty in December 2008 to five counts of third-degree criminal sexual conduct, Kellie Ann Lundon-Cormican, was sentenced yesterday to 10 years in prison.

She will also have to serve 10 years of supervised probation once released from prison and register as a sex offender.

District Judge Michael Kraker said the sentence was imposed because Lundon-Cormican lacked any remorse for the devastating impact her behavior has had on the victim's family. She is also not considered a good candidate for probation.

Having been free on bond before sentencing, Lundon-Cormican was taken into custody immediately after yesterday's proceeding.


* * * * *
Minnesota Teacher Admits Sex with Schoolboy - Updated
[Previous 12/19/08 post]
(Crookston, Minnesota) Thirty-nine-year-old Kellie Ann Lundon-Cormican offered an guilty plea to five counts of third-degree criminal sexual conduct before Judge Michael Kraker in Polk County District Court Wednesday afternoon.

In exchange for the guilty plea, prosecutors will dismiss five counts of first-degree criminal sexual conduct and three misdemeanor counts.

At Wednesday’s hearing, Lundon-Cormican admitted under oath that she had sexual relations with the boy on two occasions in August, once in September and twice in November, all in 2007. She also said she is currently under mental health treatment, which includes counseling and medication.

According to a taped interview Lundon-Cormican had with law enforcement officers in December 2007, the sexual acts included both intercourse and performing oral sex on the boy. At the time, the boy was 14, but she said in the interview that she was led to believe he was 16.

In Minnesota, while the penalties would be less severe if the victim is age 16 or older, the law also states that mistaking the victim’s age as older is no defense, that the perpetrator is still responsible for the crime. Lundon-Cormican called the incidents a mistake.

Sentencing is scheduled for February 2, 2009. Cormican remains free on bond.


* * * * *
Minnesota Teacher, 38, Schoolboy, 14
[Previous 12/06/07 post bumped]
(Crookston, Minnesota) A 38-year-old substitute teacher at Crookston High School, Kellie Ann Lundon-Cormican, has been accused of engaging in sex with a 14-year-old boy.

Lundon-Cormican was charged this week with four counts of third-degree criminal sexual conduct.

Crookston Police were alerted to the alleged crimes by a tipster on December 1st. When interviewed, Lundon-Cormican told Officer Dacian Bienek she thought the boy was 16.

Lundon-Cormican said they had sex a couple times in August, backed off after school started, had sex again in late September, and then twice last week in her car and in her house.

Lundon-Cormican is currently free with a court appearance scheduled for December 12th.

Tip: Don Morgenstern

OK Female Teacher Gets Prison for Sex with Girl - Updated

(Norman, Oklahoma) Yesterday, former Norman teacher and basketball coach Vicky Lynn Lewallen pleaded guilty under a blind plea to two counts of oral sodomy of a 16-year-old female student.

Entering a blind plea means the prosecution and defense cannot agree on a plea deal, leaving sentencing up to the judge.

As a result, Lewallen was sentenced to two years in prison and eight years of probation after her release. She also must complete a three-year sex offender program when she gets out of prison.


* * * * *
Female Teacher Charged with Rape of Girl
[Previous 6/13/07 post]
(Norman, Oklahoma) Last month, a 44-year-old science teacher and former girl's basketball coach at Norman North High School, Lynn Lewallen (aka Vicky Lynn Lewallen), was suspended from her teaching position for alleged inappropriate behavior with a 16-year-old female student.

Today, Lewallen was arraigned on two counts of forcible sodomy and two counts of rape.

"The charges stemmed from allegations from the victim in the case, disclosing the relationship and information we had regarding them being caught in the act at school and the investigation that followed," said Cleveland County District Attorney Greg Mashburn.

Lewallen was booked and released on personal recognizance.

Tip: Don Morgenstern

Balinese Defy Fatwa for Yoga Festival

(Bali, Indonesia) Yesterday, the International Yoga Festival opened on the Indonesian resort island of Bali despite the issuance of a nation-wide fatwa against yoga by the nation's top Muslim clerics.

Organisers said seminars and workshops would help introduce yoga to a wider audience and rejected the clerics' concerns that some forms of the popular exercise were a threat to Islam.

"The festival has a universal value. It doesn't belong to any religious teachings," International Bali-India Yoga Festival spokeswoman Susi Andrini said. [...]

But the Indonesian Council of Ulemas, the top religious body in the mainly Muslim country, issued a fatwa in January banning Indonesian Muslims from all forms of yoga that involve Hindu religious rituals such as chanting mantras. [...]

Religious edicts issued by the ulemas are not legally binding on Muslims but it is considered sinful to ignore them.

Andrini said organisers were not afraid to hold the festival at the Bajrasandi Bali Monument in Denpasar -- the capital of the Hindu-majority island of Bali -- despite the fatwa. [my bold]

This is the first time I've heard that a fatwa can be ignored.

Sex Offender Decapitated on Florida Highway

(Orange County, Florida) A 47-year-old man, Christopher Calandrella, was strolling across State Route 50 at about 3 AM on February 26 and was hit by a car.

Driving her Nissan Altima, Antoinette Whitley stopped to check on the injured pedestrian. As she approached, an 18-wheeler barreled over Calandrella, killing him instantly. The big rig left him headless.

The driver of the tractor-trailer did not stop.

Tire marks left on the roadway show the truck driver had applied his brakes, FHP Sgt. Kim Miller said. Troopers have stopped nearly a dozen tractor-trailers matching the description of the hit-and-run vehicle.

The vehicle was described as white, with "Star" written on the back of the trailer.

Calandrella has been described as a convicted sex offender who was found guilty of molesting a 14-year-old girl and guilty of assaulting a little boy's mother in the state of Washington in 1994. Calandrella spent two years in prison for the offenses. At the time of his death, Calandrella was wanted in Wyoming for failing to register as a sex offender.

Calandrella was listed as a transient on the Florida sex offender registry. Nobody knows why he was in Orange County walking across a highway at 3 AM.

Taxing "The Rich"


Obama is trying to get tax hikes on "the rich" through Congress to pay for all his promises to other people. But his simplistic Leftist worldview seems to have prevented him from seeing who the people are whom he proposes to tax more. Who are the people earning over $250,000 a year whom Obama wants to hit? Income is a sort of a pyramid. There are a few very rich people at the top but most of "the rich" whom Obama wants to tax are near the base of the pyramid: fairly close to that $250,000 mark. And most of them are hard-working people: doctors, dentists, businessmen and professionals generally.

So will they just pay the extra tax and grin and bear it? If the tax increase were limited to paying 39.6% instead of 33% on any income above $250,000, those just over the mark might not think the change worth bothering about -- and sneering Leftist Jonathan Chait makes that point. But Chait fails to acknowledge that there is a lot more to Obama's tax proposals than the new top rate. Obama also wants to cut out a lot of tax deductions available to those earning over $250,000 and he also has proposed increasing their tax rate on capital gains and dividends from 15 to 20 percent. So many professionals will take a fairly big hit if they carry on as before. So lots of them will reorganize their affairs so that Obama gets exactly nothing extra from them.

And The Corner has a collection of emails from high earners that gives lots of detail about what many of them will do. One example:

"My wife and I are both pediatricians. We own our own practice together. We have one PA and 7 other employees. We each gross about $200 K a year. We have 3 young children at home, 2 of whom are not in school. We also employ an in-home nanny. My wife has been torn for years about not being at home for these children, which are our biggest investment in the future. We operate parallel S corporations as PC's, with a 50/50 ownership of the LLC that is our business. We file taxes jointly. After crunching some numbers concerning the President's tax hike proposals, I have come to the following conclusions. If the President's plan is enacted, we will do the following:

1. My wife will become a stay at home mother.

2. At least 3 of my 7 employees will be released.

3. The practice will downsize to a smaller office space, i.e. less rent.

4. The number of patients cared for on a daily basis will drop by 40%.

5. My wife will come out of the forced ER call schedule for good.

6. I will gross $249,999.00 a year, exactly.

7. The net income of our personal home will decrease by less than $10 K a year from where it would have been if we changed nothing.

So a lot of important service providers will reduce the services they provide in response to the simple-minded ideas of the simple-minded Leftist in the White House -- and America will be the poorer for it. Wealth is not money. Wealth is the goods and services that money can buy and reduced services available reduces the total national wealth. And that's no abstraction. As one of my medical correspondents notes:

"Seeing that almost half of doctors are women, and most are married and many have children, it should be obvious that many will reduce their hours worked. And with all the problems that Obama Care will create, there WILL be a shortage of doctor hours to care for patients. So EVERYONE will EQUALLY WAIT IN LONG LINES FOR CARE.

Another relevant excerpt which shows that the loss of wealth will be large:

"President Lyndon Johnson's administration was known for his War on Poverty. President Obama's will become notable for his War on Prosperity. We're speaking, of course, of Obama's plans to hike income taxes on the most wealthy 2 or 3 percent of the nation. He's not just raising the top rate to 39.6 percent; he's also disallowing about one-third of top earner's deductions, whether for state and local taxes, charitable contributions or mortgage interest. This is an effective hike in their taxes by an average of about 20 percent.

And soon the next shoe will drop - he'll announce that he's keeping yet another of his campaign promises: to apply the full payroll tax to all income over $250,000 a year. (Right now, the 15.3 percent Social Security tax only applies to the first $106,800 of income - you neither pay the tax on income above that, nor accumulate added benefit.) For many taxpayers in this bracket, this hike will raise their total taxes by about half. Finally, he's declaring war on investors by raising the capital-gains-tax rate to 20 percent. These increases are politically insignificant: The top 2 percent of the nation casts only about 4 percent of the votes, barely enough to attract the notice of even the most meticulous pollsters. But they have enormous economic significance. Those who earn more than $200,000 pay almost 60 percent of America's income taxes and account for a third of its total disposable income. If these spenders and investors are hunkering down, waiting for the revenuers to beat down their doors, their confidence will be anything but robust. Their spending will drop; they'll be unlikely to invest (except in new tax shelters)."

So Obama's increase in the tax rates could well bring about not an increase but a REDUCTION in the amount of tax revenue received.

Posted by John Ray.

Louisiana Mom Gets 48 Years in Death of Baby

(Shreveport, Louisiana) A 21-year-old local mother, Michelle Martorana, pleaded guilty to attempted murder for her actions in the death of her two-week old daughter, Christine, and was sentenced by Bossier District Judge Jeff Cox to 48 years in prison.

Matorano's attorney said she was a mentally challenged young woman.

Martorana told investigators she threw her baby onto a bed when she wouldn't quit crying and the baby bounced off and landed on the floor, fracturing her skull.

Shedding some tears, Martorana was emotional and apologetic in court.

Texas Teacher Accused of Improper Relationship with Student

(Rosenberg, Texas) A 25-year-old teacher formerly at Lamar High School, Megan Kastner, has been arrested for allegedly engaging in an improper relationship with a student.

Once alerted, police conducted an investigation and found sufficient evidence to charge Kastner with second-degree improper relationship between an educator and a student.

Kastner was booked into custody at the Fort Bend County Jail with bond set at $30,000.

New York Woman Arrested for Rape of Boy

(Utica, New York) A 23-year-old local woman, Maria C. Muniz, has been arrested for allegedly engaging in sex repeatedly with a 14-year-old boy.

The alleged sexual intercourse reportedly occurred at her residence during January and February 2009.

Muniz has been charged with second-degree rape.

After arraignment at Utica City Court, Muniz was booked into custody at the Oneida County Jail with bail set at $7,500.

Marine One Blueprints Found in Iran

It appears that the release of sensitive military information has become an everyday occurrence and barely newsworthy.

A company that monitors P2P networks says it found details about the president’s helicopter, Marine One, on a computer in Tehran. Pittsburgh station WPXI reports.

Bob Boback, CEO of Tiversa, said, ”We found a file containing entire blueprints and avionics package for Marine One. … What appears to be a defense contractor in Bethesda, MD had a file sharing program on one of their systems that also contained highly sensitive blueprints for Marine One,” Boback said. [...]

It’s no accident the information wound up in Iran, the company said. Countries like Iran, Pakistan, Yemen, Qatar and China are “actively searching for information that is disclosed in this fashion because it is a great source of intelligence,” Boback said.

Just think, with national health care the government will also be assuring the confidentiality of everyone's medical records. Oh goody!

Facebook Hacked

Within the last week, Facebook has been infected with four malicious applications trying to steal information from user profiles.

Cat Bong - Construction and Use

(Lancaster County, Nebraska) To create your own personal cat bong, obtain parts and materials and follow the instructions.

1) Approximately 3 sq. ft. of plexiglass,
2) Duct tape
3) Section of garden hose 18 inches in length
4) Small smoking bowl
5) Kitten - approximately 6 weeks old

Instructions: Cut plexiglass into 6 pieces to create a box approximately 6" x 12" x 6". Duct tape the pieces together to create a box, leaving the top aside. Create two holes in box top and tape garden hose section to one and smoking bowl to the other. Insert kitten into box and duct tape the top to create a closed space. Put smoking material in bowl, place lips on garden hose, and suck while holding flame over smoking material.

The device was designed by 20-year-old Acea Schomaker who, by the way, was arrested and booked into the Lancaster County Jail after being seen bonging the kitten by sheriff's deputies responding to an unrelated domestic disturbance.

Although he said he did it because he wanted to calm the kitten down, Schomaker faces charges of animal cruelty, possession of marijuana and possession of drug paraphernalia.

Thus far, Schomaker has been fined $400 on the animal cruelty charge but it may be elevated to a felony offense if the cat dies. The kitten, named Shadow, is being examined at an animal clinic in Omaha to determine if it suffered lung damage.

Material success and social failure?

More junk epidemiology below. The authors find less social dysfunction in Nordic countries and in Japan and say that is because incomes are more equal there. So, like nearly all epidemiologists, they make causal inferences from correlational data -- which you cannot logically do. They allegedly spent 30 years arriving at their conclusions so I am sorry to say that it took me approximately two minutes to see an alternative explanation for their findings: ethnic diversity. Japan to this day has few immigrants and the Nordic countries have only recently begun to have a large immigrant population. And as Robert Putnam has famously shown, social homogeneity expands trust and co-operation. So there is less social dysfunction because people feel happier and safer and more co-operative in a country where most people are like them.

And, without looking at it in detail, I am guessing that the same applies to U.S. States. States with the largest minority populations (the South?) have the highest level of social dysfunction.

How nasty of me to undermine so quickly conclusions that so suit the prejudices of the Left! But even if all of the explanation that I have just given is wrong, the point still stands that "correlation is not causation". You learn that in Statistics 101 but if you are a grand epidemiologist, you are allowed to ignore that, apparently. And BOTH of us could be wrong. There could be some third process at work generating the numbers concerned. Assigning causes from epidemiological data is always mere speculation

It is common knowledge that in rich societies the poor have shorter lives and suffer more from almost every social problem. Likewise, large inequalities of income are often regarded as divisive and corrosive. In a groundbreaking book, based on 30 years' research, Richard Wilkinson, Emeritus Professor at The University of Nottingham together with co-author Kate Pickett from the University of York, go an important stage beyond either of these ideas to demonstrate that more unequal societies are bad for almost everyone within them - the well-off as well as the poor.

Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett forcefully demonstrate that nearly every modern social and environmental problem - ill-health, lack of community, life, violence, drugs, obesity, mental illness , long working hours, big prison populations - is more likely to occur in a less equal society, and adversely affects all of those within it.

The remarkable data the book presents and the measures it uses are like a spirit level which we can hold up to compare the conditions of different societies. It reveals that if Britain [Which has always received lots of immigrants and which as a consequence now has a large and troublesome minority population] became as equal as the average for the four most equal of the rich countries (Japan, Norway, Sweden and Finland), levels of trust might be expected to increase by two-thirds, homicide rates could fall by 75 per cent, everyone could get the equivalent of almost seven weeks extra holiday a year, and governments could be closing prisons all over the country.

The Spirit Level: Why More Equal Societies Almost Always Do Better, shows us how, after a point, additional income buys less and less additional health, happiness and wellbeing. The issue is now community and how we relate to each other. This important book explains how it is now possible to piece together a new, compelling and coherent picture of how we can release societies from the grip of pervasive and schismatic dysfunctional behaviour, a picture which will revitalise politics and provide a new way of thinking about how we organise human communities. It is a major new approach to how we can improve the real quality of life, not just for the poor, but for everyone.

More here

The above post also appears today on my FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC blog, which is where I normally debunk epidemiological theorizing


Posted by John Ray.

Ebola-Infected Pigs

(Bulacan Province, Philippines) Yesterday, four 10-member teams of workers from the Philippine Bureau of Animal Industry (BAI) began busily "depopulating" a farm of 6,000 pigs infected with the Ebola-Reston virus.

Security is tight around the farm which lies northeast of Manila in the town of Pandi. Journalists are allowed no closer than two kilometers to prevent spread of the virus. Police checkpoints have been positioned at key locations in the province to dissuade reporters from getting close.

According to a text message from BAI Director Dave Catbagan, 300 pigs were culled by the afternoon. The killing operation was observed by representatives from the World Health Organization (WHO) and the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) along with provincial and local officials.

During an interview on Friday, Catbagan said the pigs would be killed with a captive bolt pistol which he explained is a stun gun with a blunt rod.

The rod would be used to put pressure on a certain part of a pig’s forehead, which would immobilize and/or kill the animals.

“In this way, the pigs won’t feel anything,” he said.

An area of the farm has been designated for collecting and burning the carcasses. After the carcasses are burned, field personnel will clean the farm and its surroundings with disinfectants.

Director Catbagan said the cause of the outbreak is still being investigated. Six workers became infected by the pigs but it's unknown how the pigs acquired the virus.

Catbagan said tests done by local and foreign health and animal experts on pigs in a farm in Pangasinan and slaughterhouses in Valenzuela City and Nueva Ecija yielded negative results for Ebola transmission.

Dr. Enrique Tayag, director of the DOH National Epidemiology Center, said the two workers from Pandi farm and four others from Pangasinan, Valenzuela and Cabanatuan City initially found to have acquired the virus were now safe.

According to the WHO, the strain infecting the pigs is not dangerous to humans, unlike the four deadly Ebola subtypes found in Africa.

Typically, the Ebola-Reston strain only kills monkeys. Of course, there are still unanswered questions. More research is required.

Two interesting emails

Obama and the "Mikoyan syndrome"

A comment received from Gerard Jackson of Brookesnews

A number of people have commented on the hypocrisy of Obama and his rich supporters, whose attitude is one of "do as I say and not as I do". Critics do not realise that this is characteristic of leftists. They always exempt themselves from their own strictures. I call this behaviour the Mikoyan syndrome.

Anastas Mikoyan was a communist agitator in oil refineries at Baku Batoum that were owned by an industrialist called Zubalov, Mikoyan led strikes, protests and organised study groups. One can think of him as the pre-Soviet equivalent of a "community activist". However, once the Soviets grabbed control of the state he took Zubalov's mansion for his own, including the servants, cracked down on strikes, shot protestors, banned study groups that questioned the party's authority and sent their organisers to labour camps. He was justified in doing this because - like today's Democrats - he believed that anyone who challenged the Party was evil or stupid. I regret to say that Mikoyan survived Stalin's purges and died of old age, unlike thousands of his victims.

At the end of the day, Obama is nothing but a highly polished Hugo Chavez with the same corrupt instincts. To him the crisis is an opportunity to plunder Americans and then - with the willing assistance of America's corrupt media - use the loot to effectively turn the US into a one-party state.

*******************

Obama adds to the mortgage problem

An email from the National Association of Realtors. Simplistic Leftist thinking about "the rich" is going to make the financial crisis worse

You may have seen news reports about President Obama's budget proposal that was released today at 11:30 AM Eastern Time. A small section of the sweeping budget plan has the potential to become a major impediment to a recovery in real estate markets across the nation. NAR is 100% opposed to the provision that modifies the Mortgage Interest Deduction and is prepared to use its formidable array of resources against its enactment.

As currently drafted, the plan changes the Mortgage Interest Deduction by reducing the amount of mortgage deductibility on families earning over $250,000. This proposed change in the Mortgage Interest Deduction will result in further erosion of home prices and home values. If this proposal is enacted it will lead to a new round of price depreciation, will cause greater distress on the balance sheets of banks as the collateral value of mortgage backed securities declines. A second credit crisis could emerge before the first one is resolved.

As you read this NAR is launching a multiphase plan of action to eliminate this provision from the budget plan. In the next 24 hours, NAR will be expressing our concerns directly to President Obama, to all members of the United States House of Representatives and the Senate, placing advertisements in the publications read by Washington, DC decision makers. Additionally, NAR will be forming a coalition with other groups affected by this proposal.

Posted by John Ray.

Choosing Poverty

(New Delhi, India) By rejecting the benefits of modern society, anti-consumerist Australians Mark and Cathy Delaney have also achieved a strikingly small environmental footprint.

The college-educated couple claim they have freed themselves of money and possessions in a "radical detox" from consumer society.

What they don't say is that their masochistic lifestyle is arguably the result of a progressive value system, likely punctuated by self-loathing. Whereas virtually all of humanity wants to build better lives for their offspring, the Delaneys have done the exact opposite.

Mr. and Mrs. Delaney, along with two sons, live in a bedroom-sized home with no running water, no television, no refrigerator and no washing machine in a shanty town on the eastern outskirts of Delhi. A putrid canal near the Delaneys' front door carries away sewage.

Two mattresses, used to sleep on at night, double as a "lounge" during the day. Meals are eaten sitting on the floor and they share with neighbours a squat toilet in a small bathroom.

But the Delaneys are not complaining. For them, living in a slum has been deeply enriching.

"It baffles us that more people in Australia who say they are sick of their lives don't do something like we have," says Cathy Delaney, who holds a masters' degree in pure mathematics. [...]

Things that most families take for granted bring the Delaneys great satisfaction.

Such as electricity. The power goes off in the neighbourhood several hours each day.

To help the family cope, Cathy got a small solar panel worth about $100 for her 40th birthday that powers a lamp during the blackouts.

Forty-two-year-old Mark Delaney, a lawyer, is a little less enthusiastic about scratching out a life amid abject poverty.

"Cathy is a bit harder line than me," says Mark.

"Sometimes she says 'let's move down a bit' but I'm usually a bit resistant. Most people think we are pretty stupid already."

Heh. I would go a step further and say the Delaneys are nuts.

Personal choices such as rejecting television and leading a simpler lifestyle are understandable. However, living without running water nor a functioning sanitary sewage system is over the top.

One has to wonder what exactly they learned while obtaining their college degrees. An education isn't required to move into an illegal squatter settlement with 60,000 neighbors packed into a square kilometer.

Furthermore, given that squatter settlements are customarily crime-ridden, vermin-infested and prone to disease outbreaks, everybody except the Delaneys are trying to get out.

Lastly, it's reasonable to ask what exactly are the Delaneys teaching their children?

Companion post at The Jawa Report.

Girl to Abort Twins

(Recife, Brazil)

A NINE-year-old girl pregnant after years of alleged sexual abuse by her stepfather is likely to abort twins she is carrying in a case that has shocked Brazil, reports in Sao Paulo said.

The Brazilian girl, who was not identified because she is a minor, was found to be four months pregnant after being taken to hospital suffering stomach pains, the news websites G1, pe360graus and the Diario de Pernambuco reported. [...]

"We don't know if she will develop the pregnancy up to the end because of the structure of her body. It is a big risk for her,'' the doctor who confirmed her pregnancy before she was taken to the institute, Jose Severiano Cavalcanti, told the Diario de Pernambuco.

"She doesn't have a pelvis able to support a gestation of twins,'' he said.

Abortion is illegal in Brazil except in cases of rape or if the woman's health is in danger.

Sad story.

The perverted 23-year-old stepfather is believed to have abused the girl since age six along with her physically handicapped 14-year-old sister. He's in custody after being caught in the process of skipping town.

Tip: slwlion

Chechnya Prez: "Women Are Property"

More guidance from the religion of peace:

The President of Chechnya has justified the right of male relatives to carry out 'honour killings' after seven young women were found shot dead.

Ramzan Kadyrov said the women, whose bodies were found dumped by the roadside, had loose morals and were rightfully shot.

The 32-year-old former militia leader describes women as the property of their husbands and says their main role is to bear children.

Listen for the outrage.

Mistresses can claim maintenance under new Australian laws

Sounds like converting all relationships into prostitution to me

CHEATING husbands will be open to divorce-style litigation from their mistresses under new laws. Mistresses can now claim income maintenance, property and even superannuation funds under the Family Law Amendment (De Facto Financial Matters and Other Measures), dubbed the "mistress laws", which were passed by the Senate last November and came into effect today (March 1).

The main objective is to remove same-sex discrimination from the Family Court system, but they have left the door open for a raft of de facto relationship claims.

The laws declare that de facto couples who satisfy basic criteria - such as being in the relationship for at least two years - will be treated in the Family Court in the same way as a married couple. It also applies to same-sex couples.

The laws will change the way property is divided by enabling the court to consider the "future needs" of partners, as it does for married couples.

Men or women who have a second relationship outside a marriage are now liable to legal action in the Family Court should the second partner decide he or she deserves income support or a share of assets. This is particularly the case if a child is involved.

SOURCE


Posted by John Ray.

PA Women Accused of Raping Four Boys

(Reynoldsville, Pennsylvania) Two local women, 31-year-old Melissa Burr and 27-year-old Janie Courson, have been accused of raping four boys aged between five and 10 years old. The alleged rapes reportedly occurred between January and March 2008 at a residence in Reynoldsville.

The four boys are in the custody of child services.