Roundabout via Cousin Colby
Thursday, December 6, 2012
Mosby & Lincoln
Doing the same favor for the Sioux that he was performing for the South, on 6 December 1862 Abraham Lincoln ordered 39 Indians hanged who had participated in the Sioux Uprising in Minnesota.
Handcuffed student shoots himself in the head in the back of a police car after officers took him into custody to prevent him hurting himself
Via Don
A high school student has shot himself in the back of the head while inside a police car - after officers took him into custody to prevent him hurting himself.
The unidentified teenager from North Shore High School in Houston, Texas survived the shooting and was conscious when he arrived at hospital.
Officers said he became depressed after breaking up with a girlfriend in September, and on Wednesday morning, he texted a fellow student, indicating he intended to hurt himself.
The fellow student alerted campus officials, and they found the troubled teenager in a restroom at the high school, Click2Houston reported.
He appeared to be mentally unstable, and it took two deputy constables to remove him from the restroom, officials said.
He was taken into custody for his own safety and a deputy constable searched and handcuffed the student and put him into the back of a patrol car.
While handcuffed in the moving car, the student retrieved a gun that had been hidden beneath his t-shirt and shot himself in the back of the head.
A high school student has shot himself in the back of the head while inside a police car - after officers took him into custody to prevent him hurting himself.
The unidentified teenager from North Shore High School in Houston, Texas survived the shooting and was conscious when he arrived at hospital.
Officers said he became depressed after breaking up with a girlfriend in September, and on Wednesday morning, he texted a fellow student, indicating he intended to hurt himself.
The fellow student alerted campus officials, and they found the troubled teenager in a restroom at the high school, Click2Houston reported.
He appeared to be mentally unstable, and it took two deputy constables to remove him from the restroom, officials said.
He was taken into custody for his own safety and a deputy constable searched and handcuffed the student and put him into the back of a patrol car.
While handcuffed in the moving car, the student retrieved a gun that had been hidden beneath his t-shirt and shot himself in the back of the head.
More @ Mail Online
Republicans for Big Government
Via midnightrider
Do you know anyone who voted Republican this past election in order to further President Obama’s big government agenda? Or is it more likely that Republican voters sought to advance a smaller version of the federal government? And if they did, why are Republican congressional leaders offering to help the president spend us into oblivion?
I suspected that those questions might be asked when Mitt Romney was nominated to oppose Obama. My view of his campaign then and now has been that he presented a choice to the voters of big government versus bigger government, and bigger government prevailed. Romney argued during the campaign that he was at a disadvantage because the president had distributed federal tax dollars to persons and groups critical to his re-election. He has since argued that he lost the election because nearly half of Americans – some by chance, some by choice and some by force – are dependent on government for much of their income or subsistence.
His argument sounds harsh, but it’s true. A formerly working and now retired couple in their mid-80s who are receiving monthly payments from the Social Security Administration into which they were forced to make payments while they were working can hardly be considered slackers. But they can be considered dupes. All of us who have fallen for the government’s nonsense about it holding our money for our future use have been duped. The government doesn’t hold anyone’s money for him. It spends whatever it collects as soon as it receives it. When its entitlement bills come due, it uses current tax revenue, or it borrows money in order to acquire the cash to make the payments.
The president
knows this. Congress knows it. The courts have endorsed it.
In endorsing it, the courts have held that the government’s decision to pay entitlements is a political, not a legal, one. Stated differently, the federal government has no legal obligation to pay any money to any Social Security or Medicare or Medicaid applicant. That’s why those who have relied on the political wisdom of politicians, rather than their own prudential judgment, are dupes. Let me rephrase that: Those who have permitted politicians to use the force of law to compel us all to contribute our hard-earned income to a bankrupt government Ponzi scheme are dupes if they think this can work without end.
Do you know anyone who voted Republican this past election in order to further President Obama’s big government agenda? Or is it more likely that Republican voters sought to advance a smaller version of the federal government? And if they did, why are Republican congressional leaders offering to help the president spend us into oblivion?
I suspected that those questions might be asked when Mitt Romney was nominated to oppose Obama. My view of his campaign then and now has been that he presented a choice to the voters of big government versus bigger government, and bigger government prevailed. Romney argued during the campaign that he was at a disadvantage because the president had distributed federal tax dollars to persons and groups critical to his re-election. He has since argued that he lost the election because nearly half of Americans – some by chance, some by choice and some by force – are dependent on government for much of their income or subsistence.
His argument sounds harsh, but it’s true. A formerly working and now retired couple in their mid-80s who are receiving monthly payments from the Social Security Administration into which they were forced to make payments while they were working can hardly be considered slackers. But they can be considered dupes. All of us who have fallen for the government’s nonsense about it holding our money for our future use have been duped. The government doesn’t hold anyone’s money for him. It spends whatever it collects as soon as it receives it. When its entitlement bills come due, it uses current tax revenue, or it borrows money in order to acquire the cash to make the payments.
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In endorsing it, the courts have held that the government’s decision to pay entitlements is a political, not a legal, one. Stated differently, the federal government has no legal obligation to pay any money to any Social Security or Medicare or Medicaid applicant. That’s why those who have relied on the political wisdom of politicians, rather than their own prudential judgment, are dupes. Let me rephrase that: Those who have permitted politicians to use the force of law to compel us all to contribute our hard-earned income to a bankrupt government Ponzi scheme are dupes if they think this can work without end.
More @ LRC
Remember those SHOT Show arrests?
Via Don
In 2010, the SHOT Show was roiled by the news of almost two dozen
executives arrested in a massive bribery sting. The case has just
concluded two years of falling apart with an interesting result: the 22
executives arrested are free and clear, and the FBI's ace informant, who
seems to be a shockingly bad bloke even as CIs go, is going up the
river on the charges that they were holding over his head.
The taxpayers are out many millions (tens of millions?) on a political prosecution led by a familiar name -- Lanny Breuer -- to besmirch the shooting industry's main annual event, and there's nothing to show for it but gigantic lawyers' bills for the framed defendants (including a SWHC VP) and a major hit to the FBI's reputation for professionalism and probity.
We really can't improve on The Firearm Blog's analysis of this, so we'll just send you over there, although we're unable to resist providing a couple of comments after their lede below, to add a smidgen of perspective.
The taxpayers are out many millions (tens of millions?) on a political prosecution led by a familiar name -- Lanny Breuer -- to besmirch the shooting industry's main annual event, and there's nothing to show for it but gigantic lawyers' bills for the framed defendants (including a SWHC VP) and a major hit to the FBI's reputation for professionalism and probity.
We really can't improve on The Firearm Blog's analysis of this, so we'll just send you over there, although we're unable to resist providing a couple of comments after their lede below, to add a smidgen of perspective.
More @ Weapons Man
Club for Growth's Chocola: Obama Has 'Perverted Sense of Fairness'
Club for Growth President Chris Chocola tells Newsmax that President Obama has a “perverted sense of fairness” when it comes to negotiations on the fiscal cliff, and may in fact want to drive the nation over that cliff.
Chocola is also critical of House Speaker John Boehner’s fiscal cliff proposal, saying it increases the tax burden without spurring economic growth.
And he warns that many people will be “very upset” if Republicans vote for tax increases and those lawmakers could face a primary challenge as a result.
Club for Growth is a fiscally conservative political organization that supports a low-tax and limited-government agenda. Chocola became president of the group in 2009. Before that he served two terms as a U.S. congressman from Indiana.
President Obama insists on raising taxes on wealthier Americans, but now says he is willing to consider cuts to entitlement programs. In an exclusive interview with Newsmax TV on Wednesday, Chocola was asked if he believes Obama really wants to compromise or is intent on taking the country over the fiscal cliff of tax hikes and mandatory spending cuts.
“The president has a perverted sense of fairness. He wants to raise taxes on the top 2 percent or those earning over $250,000 even though the math doesn’t work,” he says.
“If we do what the president wants us to do, we’d solve less than 8 percent of our annual deficit.
“I’m not convinced that the president doesn’t want to go off the cliff. If he’s wedded to the political point of raising taxes just to say he did, he’s not living up to his responsibility to address the debt and the deficit.
“I hope someone in Washington does and I hope it’s the Republicans that stand firm and not compromise to the point where they’re just simply engaging in a political act rather than a policy position that actually starts to get us down the road to fiscal sanity.”
More @ Newsmax
Vocabulary Test Results Show Top U.S. Students Losing Ground, Others Stagnate
Via Kelli
If you can identify the meaning of the word "prospered" within a passage, chances are you know more vocabulary than most American high school seniors.
The results of the national standardized vocabulary tests are in, and the scores are troubling -- but not unexpected -- experts say. Average performance on the U.S. Education Department's national exams was mostly stagnant at low levels between 2009 and 2011, and the highest performers lost ground during that time.
"We should be worried about this," said Cornelia Orr, executive director of the National Assessment Governing Board. "It's not any more of a crisis than we've been seeing in reading."
On Thursday, the National Center for Education Statistics, the U.S. Education Department's research arm, released the vocabulary scores for fourth- and eighth-grade students on the 2009 and 2011 reading comprehension exams administered by the National Assessment of Educational Progress. This is the first time the results of a separate scale for vocabulary questions on the national reading comprehension test have been released. NAEP is considered the "gold standard" of standardized testing, since stakes are low for children and since the tests are designed by the federal government, which has no skin in the game in terms of how states perform. (The release also included 12th grade scores for only 2009, since that exam is only given every four years).
On average, fourth-graders scored 218 out of a total of 500 points, and eighth-graders scored 265. The top-performing fourth-graders (in the 90th percentile) only netted a 266; in eighth-grade, these students got a 311; and in 12th grade, they scored at 334.
"There is the expectation that students would know all of the words that were assessed," Orr said. "The lower the percentage of students who get these questions correct means they do not know enough."
If you can identify the meaning of the word "prospered" within a passage, chances are you know more vocabulary than most American high school seniors.
The results of the national standardized vocabulary tests are in, and the scores are troubling -- but not unexpected -- experts say. Average performance on the U.S. Education Department's national exams was mostly stagnant at low levels between 2009 and 2011, and the highest performers lost ground during that time.
"We should be worried about this," said Cornelia Orr, executive director of the National Assessment Governing Board. "It's not any more of a crisis than we've been seeing in reading."
On Thursday, the National Center for Education Statistics, the U.S. Education Department's research arm, released the vocabulary scores for fourth- and eighth-grade students on the 2009 and 2011 reading comprehension exams administered by the National Assessment of Educational Progress. This is the first time the results of a separate scale for vocabulary questions on the national reading comprehension test have been released. NAEP is considered the "gold standard" of standardized testing, since stakes are low for children and since the tests are designed by the federal government, which has no skin in the game in terms of how states perform. (The release also included 12th grade scores for only 2009, since that exam is only given every four years).
On average, fourth-graders scored 218 out of a total of 500 points, and eighth-graders scored 265. The top-performing fourth-graders (in the 90th percentile) only netted a 266; in eighth-grade, these students got a 311; and in 12th grade, they scored at 334.
"There is the expectation that students would know all of the words that were assessed," Orr said. "The lower the percentage of students who get these questions correct means they do not know enough."
More @ Huff Post
Fmr. Thatcher advisor Lord Monckton evicted from UN climate summit after challenging global warming -- 'Escorted from the hall and security officers stripped him of his UN credentials'
Via Don
![[image]](https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/blogger_img_proxy/AEn0k_v-gMmvXjZoXrddtKsMxhnSG9FmqnXcz-RCVlNDIuG7Pd-WU_yP4KTv_eXGj-uncXkzdqu9FYGL2u-60I7oleK3y4esgYedWw091mhdHvb9KU62aKJ-XbqIQeVtf9qBYCDehbhUbzendupO=s0-d "[image]")
Monckton to UN: 'In the 16 years we have been coming to these conferences, there has been no global warming'
Calls to 'deport Monckton' from UN conference in Qatar
Calls to 'deport Monckton' from UN conference in Qatar
After the news
conference, and as diplomats gathered for the climate conference
president's assessment of how close countries are to agreement, Monckton
quietly slipped into the seat reserved for the delegation of Myanmar
and clicked the button to speak.
"In the 16 years
we have been coming to these conferences, there has been no global
warming," Monckton said as confused murmurs filled the hall and then
turned into a chorus of boos.
The stunt
infuriated negotiators and activists here who gather every year to
address what they believe is one of the world's top threats, the steady
rise of man-made global warming.
As Monckton was
escorted from the hall and security officers stripped him of his U.N.
credentials, several people noted that just a few hours earlier a group
of young activists had been thrown out of the convention center and
deported. Their crime: unfurling an unauthorized banner calling for the
Qatari hosts to lead the negotiations to a strong conclusion.
By late today, several activists attending the conference had posted calls to "deport Monckton" on their Twitter feeds.
More @ Climate Depot
Stunt? Not much prejudice there........Facts are so inconvenient to liberals
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