Virginia Libertarian

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Sharpton is feeling very impressed with himself, Im sure. Yesterday he told an anxiously awaiting media that; “It is our feeling that this is only the beginning. We must have a broad discussion on what is permitted and not permitted in terms of the airwaves.”

I can’t make promises on the accuracy of the quote from Sharpton, as I could not find it used anywhere else on the web, but it does not sound out of character to me.  All this over someone making an insensitive comment on the radio.  Now, the stations carrying Don Imus’ show are free to hire or fire Mr. Imus as they see fit, they own the radio stations.  What we don’t need is the government passing laws on “what is permitted and not permitted in terms of the airwaves.”  I don’t see anything in the constitution or amendments about us having freedom of speech unless that speech is vulger or obscene or offensive to someone:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

It says Congress shall make no law.  IMHO, the whole FCC is prohibited by the constitution and should be done away with.  If you don’t want to watch something on your TV, or listen to it on your radio, turn the channel, or turn it off!  It’s really that simple.  Send a message with what really counts, your dollars.  If you don’t like what someone has said, let the sponsors of the show know by not buying their product and sending them correspondance telling them so.  If enough people do that, they will stop sponsoring.  If it turns out more like the show than not, you don’t have to watch or listen to it!

Townhall.com::Phony Science and Public Policy::By Walter E. Williams

The public has become increasingly aware that the science behind manmade global warming is a fraud. But maybe Americans like bogus science in pursuit of certain public policy objectives. Let’s look at it.

Many Americans find tobacco smoke to be a nuisance. Some find the odor offensive, and others have allergies or asthma that can be aggravated by smoking in their presence. There’s little question that tobacco smoke causes these kinds of nuisances, but how successful would anti-smokers have been in a court of law, or public opinion, in achieving the kind of success they’ve achieved based on tobacco smoke being a nuisance?

A serious public health threat had to be manufactured, and in 1993 the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) stepped in to the rescue with their bogus environmental tobacco smoke (ETS) study that says secondhand tobacco smoke is a class A carcinogenic.

Why is it bogus? The EPA claimed that 3,000 Americans die annually from secondhand smoke, but there was a problem. They couldn’t come up with that conclusion using the standard statistical 95 percent confidence interval. They lowered their study’s confidence interval to 90 percent. That has the effect of doubling the margin of error and doubling the probability that mere chance explains those 3,000 deaths.

The Congressional Research Service (CRS) said, “Admittedly, it is unusual to return to a study after the fact, lower the required significance level, and declare its results to be supportive rather than unsupportive of the effect one’s theory suggests should be present.” The CRS was being kind. This kind of doctoring of research results would get a graduate student expelled from a university.

In 1998, the World Health Organization’s International Agency for Research on Cancer released the largest ever and best formulated study on ETS. The research project ran for 10 years and in seven European countries. The study, not widely publicized, concluded that no statistically significant risk existed for nonsmokers who either lived or worked with smokers.

Why do we let special interest groups get away with manipulating data in such a manner?  If this was done by Republicans to manipulate data on how many people a year are killed or saved due to guns, you can bet your ass it would be all over the media that the data had been manipulated, yet when the manipuliation suits the agenda of the media we hear nothing about it.

The face of PeachCare

Urging responsibilityThe wrangling about PeachCare has made PeachCare families “extremely anxious,” says Connie. “We just hope they dont take away the therapy benefits.”

The House bill, sponsored by Speaker Glenn Richardson R-Hiram, wouldnt affect kids already on PeachCare. But Richardson says that the time has come for parents to take more responsibility, in part through wiser family planning.

“It is the obligation of all of us to take care of those that cannot take care of themselves,” he said, adding, however, that PeachCare is too generous and needs to be “reined in as much as possible.”

“It was never intended to be an entitlement program, but its becoming one,” he said. “People are rapidly trying to make insuring children as if it were a constitutional right. It is not. The responsibility to take care of children is first with moms and dads. Mamas and daddies are responsible.”

Families, he said, ought to decide “how many children do we have, can we afford to take care of any more, and thats what responsible people should be doing. Its expensive to have children.”

Ok, you have 3 kids, one of whom is autistic, another that has “sensory difficulties” that between them require $540/week in therapy sessions.  You make a total of $850/week.  So having more kids makes sense how?  I think we need to do more than “urge” responsibility.  This is also another example of unintended consequences.  It may have been true that this was not intended as an entitlement program (although I don’t see how, unless you completely change the definition of entitlement), but once the government starts giving away something, it becomes virtually impossible to stop.  If a politician were to do so, their opponent would crucify them on it.  It appeas that what we really need is a bunch of people with no interest in being re-elected to get into office and cancel all the stupid programs that are out there.

Though some view PeachCare as an entitlement program, it’s not because “only families below a certain income are eligible,” says William Custer, director of the Center for Health Services Research at Georgia State University. “Really, it’s more like a tax credit for college tuition that decreases as family income increases.”

He says PeachCare should “be thought of as a bridge for working people that moves them into private health insurance” when their incomes rise sufficiently, and in the meantime “provides care to children who would otherwise be uninsured. If they were uninsured they would still get sick, and get even sicker because of limited access to care.”

Hmm, sound like what happened with welfare?  Of course it does, because it’s the same kind of thing.  You start giving handouts to people who make under X/year, and people won’t go out and look for jobs that make between X and X+Y (Y being the value of the handouts), and probably not even for jobs that pay more that that either, as those would require more work.  So, I can sit on the amount I am making now and get on the government dole for Y more money, or I can go bust my ass to make X+Y.  Which do you think people will do?

What we try to stress to people is that deadly force, the use of a firearm, is never justified under any circumstances to protect property

And that is why we have the society we have today.  People would be much less likely to steal, assualt, whatever, if they knew they could get shot for doing so.

YouTube Clip Out, but Thai Ban Continues - MSNBC Wire Services - MSNBC.com

BANGKOK, Thailand - The Thai government retained a ban on YouTube on Thursday despite the removal from the video-sharing site of a short clip deemed insulting to the country’s beloved monarch.

Free speech.  Live it, breath it, and if you’re a politician, deal with it.  YouTube should have told these people where to shove it from the beginning.