posted April 10, 2008 10:45 AM            

Don't you agree it's good that people can read your thread and see all of Coulter's Columns...without having to search elsewhere? We own you a big thanks for starting this thread.

Well Eleanore, whenever a leftist starts talking about the need to do this or do that I know there's a big lie at the base of their statement. It's automatic, genetic, in their DNA. Leftists lie and the lie is generally how badly they feel that poor... (fill in the blank)is or isn't..(fill in the blank..and if only America cared then poor..(fill in the blank) and America would be better/more loved by other countries, blah, blah, blah. They're just tryin to make America better...blah, blah, blah.

Facts are facts. In the case of the public school systems and especially in inner cities, these lying leftists resist every effort to provide a decent education for the very poorest students. A decent education which would give them a chance to get out of present circumstances and realize their dreams. But leftists who really don't give a damn about these children use the issue of public education to protect...not the kids but teacher unions and teachers who aren't up to even light babysitting duties. It's inconceivable that a worst job of educating children could possibly be done than is being done.

The leftist agenda depends on the uneducated, the so called poor, victims of America, teacher unions, labor unions in general, an army of bureaucrats, felons and even the dead voting for leftists to keep them in power. In reality, the leftist agenda keeps the poor, poor, keeps the uneducated uneducated and keeps them voting for leftists who feign compassion and concern for them but who are in reality their very worst enemies.

In the real world those in a permanent vegetative state could do a better job on all levels than leftists have done with everything they've touched and especially public education.

YELLOWCAKE AND YELLOW JOURNALISM
February 7, 2007

Ann Coulter

To see how liberal history is created, you need to tune into the nut-cable stations and watch their coverage of the Scooter Libby trial. On MSNBC they're covering the trial like it's the Normandy Invasion, starring Elvis Presley, as told by Joseph Goebbels.

MSNBC's "reportage" consists of endless repetition of arbitrary assertions, half-truths and thoroughly debunked canards. No one else cares about the trial — except presumably Scooter Libby — so the passionate left is allowed to invent a liberal fable without correction.

Night after night, it is blithely asserted on "Hardball" that Wilson's trip to Niger debunked the claim that Saddam Hussein had been seeking enriched uranium from Niger.

As David Shuster reported last week: "Wilson goes and finds out that the claim that Iraq was seeking uranium from Niger is not accurate."

There have been massive investigations into this particular claim of "Ambassador" Joe Wilson, both here and in Britain. Nearly three years ago, a bipartisan Senate Intelligence Committee concluded that this was not merely untrue, it was the opposite of the truth: Wilson's report actually bolstered the belief that Saddam was seeking uranium from Niger.

"The panel found," as The Washington Post reported on July 10, "that Wilson's report, rather than debunking intelligence about purported uranium sales to Iraq, as he has said, bolstered the case for most intelligence analysts." So you can see how a seasoned newsman like David Shuster might come to the exact opposite conclusion and then repeat this false conclusion on TV every night.

Wilson's unwritten "report" to a few CIA agents supported the suspicion that Saddam was seeking enriched uranium from Niger because, according to Wilson, the former prime minister of Niger told him that in 1999 Saddam had sent a delegation to discuss "expanding commercial relations" with Niger. The only thing Niger has to trade is yellowcake. If Saddam was seeking to expand commercial relations with Niger, we can be fairly certain he wasn't trying to buy designer jeans, ready-to-assemble furniture or commemorative plates. He was seeking enriched uranium.

But Wilson simply accepted the assurances of the former prime minister of Niger that selling yellowcake to Saddam was the farthest thing from his mind. I give you my word as an African head of state.

Chris Matthews also repeatedly says that Bush's famous "16 words" in his 2003 State of the Union address — which liberals say was a LIE! a LIE! a despicable LIE! — consisted of the claim that British intelligence said there was a "deal" for Saddam Hussein to buy enriched uranium from Niger.

Matthews huffily wonders aloud why Wilson's incorrect report didn't get into Bush's State of the Union address "rather than the president's claim of British intelligence that said there was a deal to buy uranium, which of course became one of the underpinnings of this administration's argument that we had to go to war with Iraq."

Considering how hysterical liberals were about Bush's "16 words," you'd think they'd have a vague recollection of what those words were and that they did not include the word "deal." What Bush said was: "The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa."

Even if the British had been wrong, what Bush said was factually correct: In 2003, the British government believed that Saddam sought yellowcake from Niger. (Not "MSNBC factual," mind you. I mean "real factual.")

But in fact, the British were right and Wilson was wrong. By now, everyone believes Saddam was seeking yellowcake from Niger — the CIA, the bipartisan Senate Intelligence Committee, Lord Butler's report in Britain, even the French believe it.

But at MSNBC, it's not even an open question: That network alone has determined that Saddam Hussein was not trying to acquire enriched uranium from Niger. Actually one other person may still agree with MSNBC: a discredited, washed-up State Department hack who used his CIA flunky wife's petty influence to scrape up pity assignments. But even he won't say it on TV anymore.

Shuster excitedly reported: "We've already gotten testimony that, in fact, that Joe Wilson's trip to Niger was based on forgeries that were so obvious that they were forgeries that officials said it would have only taken a few days for anybody to realize they were forgeries."

This is so wrong it's not even wrong. It's not 180 degrees off the truth — it's more like 3 times 8, carry the 2, 540 degrees from the truth. Shuster has twisted Wilson's original lie into some Frankenstein monster lie you'd need Ross Perot with a handful of flow charts to map out in full.

During Wilson's massive media tour, he began telling reporters that he knew Saddam was not seeking yellowcake from Niger because the documents allegedly proving a deal were obvious forgeries.

Again, thanks to endless investigations, we now know that Wilson was lying: He never saw the forged documents. (Not only that, but Bush's statement was not based on the forged documents because no one ever believed them.)

The bipartisan Senate Intelligence Committee report notes that Wilson was asked how he "could have come to the conclusion that the 'dates were wrong and the names were wrong' when he had never seen the CIA reports and had no knowledge of what names and dates were in the reports." Indeed, the United States didn't even receive the "obviously forged" documents until eight months after Wilson's trip to Niger!

Wilson admitted to the committee that he had "misspoken" to reporters about having seen the forged documents. Similarly, Cain "misspoke" when God inquired as to the whereabouts of his dead brother, Abel.

But on "Hardball," the forged documents that no one in the U.S. government saw until eight months after Wilson's trip now form the very impetus for the trip. A perfectly plausible theory, provided you have a working time machine at your disposal.

If you wonder how it came to be generally acknowledged "fact," accepted by all men of good will, that Joe McCarthy was a monster, that Alger Hiss was innocent, that mankind is causing global warming and that we're losing the war in Iraq, try watching the rewriting of history nightly on MSNBC. Don't forget to bring your time machine.
http://www.anncoulter.com/cgi-local/article.cgi?article=169

posted April 10, 2008 10:57 AM            

Is it correct that we agree that when people are asked to rate things on a scale, the extremes of the scale are always opposite, and whatever is in between are shades of either pole?

posted April 10, 2008 11:38 AM            

Democrats claim Gen. David Petraeus' report to Congress on the surge was a put-up job with a pre-ordained conclusion. As if their response wasn't.

Democrats yearn for America to be defeated on the battlefield and oppose any use of the military -- except when they can find individual malcontents in the military willing to denounce the war and call for a humiliating retreat.

It's been the same naysaying from these people since before we even invaded Iraq -- despite the fact that their representatives in Congress voted in favor of that war.

Mark Bowden, author of "Black Hawk Down," warned Americans in the Aug. 30, 2002, Los Angeles Times of 60,000 to 100,000 dead American troops if we invaded Iraq -- comparing an Iraq war to Vietnam and a Russian battle in Chechnya. He said Iraqis would fight the Americans "tenaciously" and raised the prospect of Saddam using weapons of mass destruction against our troops, an attack on Israel "and possibly in the United States."

On Sept. 14, 2002, The New York Times' Frank Rich warned of another al-Qaida attack in the U.S. if we invaded Iraq, noting that since "major al-Qaida attacks are planned well in advance and have historically been separated by intervals of 12 to 24 months, we will find out how much we've been distracted soon enough."

This week makes it six years since a major al-Qaida attack. I guess we weren't distracted. But it looks like al-Qaida has been.

Weeks before the invasion, in March 2003, the Times' Nicholas Kristof warned in a couple of columns that if we invaded Iraq, "the Turks, Kurds, Iraqis and Americans will all end up fighting over the oil fields of Kirkuk or Mosul." He said: "The world has turned its back on the Kurds more times than I can count, and there are signs that we're planning to betray them again." He announced that "the United States is perceived as the world's newest Libya."

The day after we invaded, Kristof cited a Muslim scholar for the proposition that if Iraqis felt defeated, they would embrace Islamic fundamentalism.

We took Baghdad in about 17 days flat with amazingly few casualties. There were no al-Qaida attacks in America, no attacks on Israel, no invasion by Turkey, no attacks on our troops with chemical weapons, no ayatollahs running Iraq. We didn't turn our back on the Kurds. There were certainly not 100,000 dead American troops.

But liberals soon began raising yet more pointless quibbles. For most of 2003, they said the war was a failure because we hadn't captured Saddam Hussein. Then we captured Saddam, and Democratic presidential candidate Howard Dean complained that "the capture of Saddam has not made America safer." (On the other hand, Howard Dean's failure to be elected president definitely made America safer.)

Next, liberals said the war was a failure because we hadn't captured Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. Then we killed al-Zarqawi and a half-dozen of his aides in an air raid. Then they said the war was a failure because ... you get the picture.

The Democrats' current talking point is that "there can be no military solution in Iraq without a political solution." But back when we were imposing a political solution, Democrats' talking point was that there could be no political solution without a military solution.

They said the first Iraqi election, scheduled for January 2005, wouldn't happen because there was no "security."

Noted Middle East peace and security expert Jimmy Carter told NBC's "Today" show in September 2004 that he was confident the elections would not take place. "I personally do not believe they're going to be ready for the election in January ... because there's no security there," he said.

At the first presidential debate in September 2004, Sen. John Kerry used his closing statement to criticize the scheduled Iraqi elections saying: "They can't have an election right now. The president's not getting the job done."

About the same time, U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan said he doubted there would be elections in January, saying, "You cannot have credible elections if the security conditions continue as they are now" -- although he may have been referring here to a possible vote of the U.N. Security Council.

In October 2004, Nicholas Lemann wrote in The New Yorker that "it may not be safe enough there for the scheduled elections to be held in January."

Days before the first election in Iraq in January 2005, The New York Times began an article on the election this way:

"Hejaz Hazim, a computer engineer who could not find a job in computers and now cleans clothes, slammed his iron into a dress shirt the other day and let off a burst of steam about the coming election.
"'This election is bogus,' Mr. Hazim said. 'There is no drinking water in this city. There is no security. Why should I vote?'"

If there's a more artful articulation of the time-honored linkage between drinking water and voting, I have yet to hear it.

And then, as scheduled, in January 2005, millions of citizens in a country that has never had a free election risked their lives to cast ballots in a free democratic election. They've voted twice more since then.

Now our forces are killing lots of al-Qaida jihadists, preventing another terrorist attack on U.S. soil, and giving democracy in Iraq a chance -- and Democrats say we are "losing" this war. I think that's a direct quote from their leader in the Senate, Harry Reid, but it may have been the Osama bin Laden tape released this week. I always get those two confused.

posted April 10, 2008 11:46 AM              

u and AG churned out mortal combat

lets have a poll

posted April 10, 2008 01:00 PM            

Not content to wait for my book to come out, Senate Democrats are demanding a censure resolution against Rush Limbaugh. Ah, the memories ...

In my experience, having prominent Democrats censure you on the Senate floor is the equivalent of 50 book signings. Or being put on the cover of The New York Times magazine 20 years ago when people still read The New York Times magazine. They should rename Senate censure resolutions "Harry Reid's Book Club."

Liberals are hopping mad because Rush Limbaugh referred to phony soldiers as "phony soldiers." They claim he was accusing all Democrats in the military of being "phony."
True, all Democrats in the military are not phony soldiers, but all phony soldiers seem to be Democrats.

If we are to believe the self-descriptions of callers to talk radio and the typical soldier interviewed on MSNBC, the military is fairly bristling with Moveon.org types.

The reality is quite the opposite. While liberals have managed to worm themselves into every important institution in America, from the public schools to the CIA to charitable foundations, they are shamefully absent from the military.

As noted in that great book that came out this week, "If Democrats Had Any Brains, They'd Be Republicans":

"According to a Military Times survey taken in September 2004, active-duty military personnel preferred President Bush to Kerry by about 73 percent to 18 percent. Sixty percent describe themselves as Republican and less than 10 percent call themselves Democrat (the same 10 percent that MSNBC has on its speed-dial). Even among the veterans, Republicans outnumber Democrats 46 percent to 22 percent."

So there aren't a lot of anti-war military types for the media to turn into this month's "It Girl." (If conservatives ran the media, there would be a constant stream of government employees admitting to sloth and incompetence, welfare recipients admitting to being welfare cheats and public schoolteachers who support school vouchers.) Sometimes liberals get desperate and have to concoct Tawana Brawley veterans.

In addition to famous fake soldiers promoted by the anti-war crowd, like Jesse MacBeth and "Winter Soldier" Al Hubbard, even liberals with actual military experience are constantly being caught in the middle of some liberal hoax.

Al Gore endlessly bragged to the media about his service in Vietnam. "I took my turn regularly on the perimeter in these little firebases out in the boonies. Something would move, we'd fire first and ask questions later," he told Vanity Fair. And then we found out Gore had a personal bodyguard in Vietnam, the most dangerous weapon he carried was a typewriter, and he left after three months. Although to his credit, Gore did not put in for a Purple Heart for the carpal tunnel syndrome he got from all that typing.

Speaking of which, John Kerry claimed to be a valiant, Purple Heart-deserving Vietnam veteran, who spent Christmas 1968 in Cambodia -- until he ran for president and more than 280 Swift Boat Veterans called him a liar. We've been waiting more than 20 months for Kerry to make good on his "Meet the Press" pledge to sign form 180, which would allow the military to release his records.

Then there was Bill Burkett, who gave CBS the phony National Guard documents; Scott Thomas Beauchamp, The New Republic's fantasist anti-war "Baghdad Diarist"; and Max Cleland, whose injuries were repeatedly and falsely described as a result of enemy fire.

Liberals will even turn a war hero like Pat Tillman into an anti-war cause celebre posthumously -- so he can't disagree. Tillman died in a friendly fire incident that occurred -- unlike Max Cleland's accident -- during actual combat with the enemy.

Because they are screaming, hysterical women, liberals treat friendly fire like a drunk driving accident. But friendly fire has been a part of war from time immemorial.

Liberals have an insane, litigious view of the military: There's been an accident in warfare, let's sue! It's as mad as the line from "Dr. Strangelove": "Gentlemen! No fighting in the War Room!" Golly jeepers, accidents can't happen in a war!

Contrary to the insinuations of his family, we don't know what Pat Tillman would say about the war he volunteered for, but we do know that he was a patriot until death. And we know what other patriots have said about friendly fire during a war.

In his book "Faith of My Fathers," John McCain describes how demoralized American prisoners of war in Vietnam were when they didn't hear any bombing for years. Finally, after a long bombing halt, Nixon renewed aerial bombing of North Vietnam in December 1972.

Our bombers couldn't know with precision where the enemy was holding (and torturing) our troops. McCain and the rest of those POWs could easily have been hit and killed by an American bomb.

But the POWs weren't denouncing the U.S. military for risking their lives with "friendly fire." They weren't crying Mommy, investigate this! Get me a trial lawyer!If their camp had been hit by American bombs, it would have been as the POWs were shouting: "God bless President Nixon!"

That's from their own mouths; that's what's in their hearts. Friendly fire -- to a nation that hasn't lost its wits -- is part of waging war.

posted April 10, 2008 01:18 PM            

This is as precious as a Jewel:

Coulter: We Want Jews To Be "Perfected"

“but it turns out you have to go into rehab if you use the word ‘faggot,’ so I … can’t really talk about Edwards.”

“We need somebody to put rat poisoning in Justice Stevens’ creme brulee,” Coulter said. “That’s just a joke, for you in the media.”

"My only regret with Timothy McVeigh is he did not go to the New York Times Building." I should have added, "after everyone had left the building except the editors and reporters."

Anyone who gives credence or cover for this woman should have their head checked.

But...to stay on topic and resolve this Pew chart issue once and for all I think we need to get back to settling how people taking a survey answer questions on a scale.

Is it correct that we agree that when people are asked to rate things on a scale, the extremes of the scale are always opposite, and whatever is in between are shades of either pole?

posted April 10, 2008 01:33 PM            

Last week, in an article titled "Walking a Tightrope on Immigration," The New York Times made the fact-defying claim that the illegal immigration issue poses a risk for Republicans who appeal to voters "angry" about illegal immigration. (This is as opposed to voters "angry" that they spent good money buying a copy of The New York Times.)

In support of this assertion, the Times was required not only to ignore the stunning defeat of this year's amnesty bill, but also to proffer provably absurd evidence. I dearly hope Democratic politicians continue to look to the Times as an accurate barometer of voter sentiment.

In addition to secret polls showing that "the majority of Americans" support "a path to citizenship for immigrants here illegally," the Times cited election results from 1994 and 2006 that directly contradict this thesis.

First, the Times raised former California Gov. Pete Wilson's "precipitous slide" in the polls after he supported Proposition 187 in 1994, which denied most taxpayer-supported services to illegal immigrants.

The problem with this example is that Proposition 187 was wildly popular with California voters.

Times reporter Michael Luo seems to be referring to the Times' own prediction of catastrophe for Proposition 187 -- not actual election results.

One week before Californians voted on Proposition 187 in 1994, B. Drummond Ayres Jr. reported in the Times that there had been "a sharp falloff in support for the proposition."

He said Hispanic-Americans, Asian-Americans and African-American ministers were coming out strongly against Proposition 187 and that "this outcry, along with the increasing opposition being voiced by liberals, civil libertarians and assorted national political figures" was having an effect.

And then Californians voted.

Proposition 187 passed in a landslide with a nearly 20-point margin -- a larger margin than Wilson got, incidentally. It was supported by two-thirds of white voters, half of black and Asian voters, and even one-third of Hispanic voters. It passed in every area of California, except San Francisco, a city where intoxicated gay men dressed as nuns performing sex acts on city streets is not considered unusual. In heavily Latino Los Angeles County, Proposition 187 passed with a 12-point margin.

I'm no campaign consultant, but I think Wilson's support for an off-the-charts popular initiative probably didn't hurt him.

In fact, here on planet Earth, about the safest thing a California politician could do would be to wildly, vocally support Proposition 187. But in New York Times-speak, politicians are walking a dangerous "tightrope" if they dare to defy a slight majority of San Francisco voters!

The initiative went to Carter-appointed U.S. District Court Judge Mariana Pfaelzer, who issued a permanent injunction and then, in a series of decisions, found the initiative unconstitutional. Her rulings were still on appeal when Democrat Gray Davis became governor and dropped the appeals. Everyone remembers how popular Gray Davis was! (First governor in California history to be recalled.)

The crown jewel of the Times' pathetic attempt to marshal evidence for its thesis that Americans want more, not fewer, illegal aliens choking our roads, schools and hospitals also included this gem: "J.D. Hayworth, a hard-line incumbent Republican representative in Arizona, lost his race in 2006, as did Randy Graf, a member of the border-enforcing Minuteman group, who also ran in Arizona."

How many times do we have to disprove this canard?

As with Hillary's position on driver's licenses for illegals -- and B. Hussein Obama's entire campaign -- the Hayworth-Graf example works better when no follow-up questions are allowed. For example:

Q: Did Hayworth's and Graf's opponents campaign against them on illegal immigration?

A: No.

Q: Were there any other issues on the ballot that year that might tell us if it was Hayworth's and Graf's positions on illegals that led to their defeats?

A: Si! Oops, I mean, yes -- why, yes there were! The very election that the Times cites as proof that anti-illegal sentiment is a loser at the ballot box also included four measures that passed overwhelmingly: (1) a measure to deny bail to illegal aliens, (2) a measure that would bar illegals from being awarded punitive damages, (3) a measure that would prohibit illegals from receiving state subsidies for education or child care, and (4) a measure to declare English the state's official language.

Whatever Arizona voters didn't like about Hayworth and Graf, it wasn't that they were too tough on illegals.

My theory is that Hayworth and Graf lost because the multitudes of Times reporters losing their jobs due to the Newspaper of Record's plummeting circulation have recently moved to Hayworth's and Graf's districts. (This is what's known as a "brain drain" in those districts.)

posted April 10, 2008 02:00 PM            

Or to word it a different way, can we agree that when people are asked to rate something on a scale something like the following comes to mind?:

posted April 10, 2008 02:52 PM            

Here's a story that may not have been deemed "Fit to Print": In the six months that ended Sept. 25, The New York Times' daily circulation was down another 4.51 percent to about a million readers a day. The paper's Sunday circulation was down 7.59 percent to about 1.5 million readers. In short, the Times is dropping faster than Hillary in New Hampshire. (Meanwhile, the Drudge Report has more than 16 million readers every day.)

One can only hope that none of the Democratic presidential candidates are among the disaffected hordes lining up to cancel their Times subscriptions.

The Times is so accustomed to lying about the news to prove that "most Americans" agree with the Times, that it seems poised to lead the Democrats -- and any Republicans stupid enough to believe the Times -- down a primrose path to their own destruction.

So if you know a Democratic presidential candidate who doesn't currently read the Times, by all means order him a subscription.

On Sunday, Times readers learned that despite this year's historic revolt of normal Americans against amnesty for illegal aliens: "Some polls show that the majority of Americans agree with proposals backed by most Democrats in the Senate, as well as some Republicans, to establish a path to citizenship for immigrants here illegally."

Was the reporter who wrote that sentence the Darfur bureau chief for the past year? By "some polls," I gather he means "a show of hands during a meeting of the Times editorial board" or "a quick backstage survey in the MSNBC greenroom."

As I believe Americans made resoundingly clear this year, the only "path to citizenship" they favor involves making an application from Norway, waiting a few years and then coming over when it's legal.

Americans were so emphatic on this point that they forced a sitting president to withdraw his signature legislative accomplishment for his second term -- amnesty for illegal aliens, aka a "path to citizenship" for illegals.

This was the goal supported by the president's acolytes at the Fox News Channel as well as a nearly monolithic Democratic Party and its acolytes at ABC, NBC, CBS, CNN, MSNBC, MTV, Oxygen TV, the Food Network, the Golf Channel, the Home Shopping Network, The in-house "Learn to Gamble" channel at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas and Comedy Central (unless that was just a sketch on the "Mind of (Carlos) Mencia").

But ordinary Americans had a different idea. Their idea was: Let's not reward law-breakers with the ultimate prize: U.S. citizenship. And the ordinary Americans won.

The Times disregards all of that history to announce that it has secret polls showing that Americans support a "path to citizenship" for illegals after all! These polls are living in the shadows!

Only those "angriest on immigration," the Times said, are still using the various words related to immigration that liberals are trying to turn into new "N-words," such as, for example, "immigration." With an exhausting use of air quotes, the Times reports that: "The Republicans have railed against 'amnesty' and 'sanctuary cities.' They have promised to build a fence on the Mexican border to keep 'illegals' out."

In liberal-speak, that sentence would read: "The Republicans have railed against 'puppies' and 'kittens.' They have promised to build a fence on the Mexican border to keep 'baby seals' out." (In my version, the sentence would read: "Believing New York Times 'polls,' Democrats irritate 'voters.'")

Half the English language is becoming the "N-word" as far as liberals are concerned. Words are always bad for liberals. Words allow people to understand what liberals are saying.

According to the Times, all decent, cultured Americans cringe when politicians use foul words like "illegals" to describe illegals. Apparently, what most Americans are clamoring for is yet more automatic messages that begin, "Press '1' for English." That, at least, is the message the Times got from the stunning victory of grassroots over the elites on the immigration bill this year.

It is against my best interests to mention how utterly out of touch Times editors and reporters are with any Americans east of Central Park West and west of Riverside Drive. I enjoy watching the Democratic presidential candidates take clear, unequivocal positions in favor of driver's licenses for illegals and then denouncing those very positions a week later (after the real polls come in).

Some people love watching the trees change color every fall. I enjoy watching the candidates' positions on immigration change.

But it is too much for any human to endure to read the Times' version of history in which "most Americans" agree with the Times on illegal immigration in the very year Americans punched back against illegal immigration so hard that the entire Washington establishment is still reeling. It's not like we have to go back to the Coolidge administration to get some sense of what Americans think about amnesty for illegals. (I mean "amnesty" for "illegals.")

posted April 10, 2008 03:09 PM            

quote:

---

AG, why don't you just start a thread on this feud of yours and JWs? Resolve it there maybe? This thread is about Ann Coulter, not Pew research polls or who has the better definition of the word "most".

---

I could, but it doesn't appear that Jwhop is interested in coming to a definite conclusion, which -if history is any precedent- means that as soon as this has sufficiently gone away he'll try to use this [mislead] again. On the other hand, if we can come to some agreement that I correctly interpretted the data, and he in fact never correctly interpretted the data, then we can take it off the table, and stop talking about a chart made three years ago. The question is simple, and I think if I asked anyone else the same question they would be forthcoming with an answer without hesitation.

posted April 10, 2008 03:28 PM            

Ann Coulter

The only "crisis" in health care in this country is that doctors are paid too little. (Also they've come up with nothing to help that poor Dennis Kucinich.)

But the Democratic Party treats doctors like they're Klan members. They wail about how much doctors are paid and celebrate the trial lawyers who do absolutely nothing to make society better, but swoop in and steal from the most valuable members of society.

Maybe doctors could get the Democrats to like them if they started suing their patients.

It's only a matter of time before the best and brightest students forget about medical school and go to law school instead. How long can a society based on suing the productive last?

You can make 30 times as much money as doctors by becoming a trial lawyer suing doctors. You need no skills, no superior board scores, no decade of training and no sleepless residency. But you must have the morals of a drug dealer. (And the bank wire transfer number to the Democratic National Committee.)

The editors of The New York Times have been engaging in a spirited debate with their readers over whether doctors are wildly overpaid or just hugely overpaid. The results of this debate are available on TimeSelect, for just $49.95.

"Many health care economists," the Times editorialized, say the partisan wrangling over health care masks a bigger problem: "the relatively high salaries paid to American doctors."

Citing the Rand Corp., the Times noted that doctors in the U.S. "earn two to three times as much as they do in other industrialized countries." American doctors earn about $200,000 to $300,000 a year, while European doctors make $60,000 to $120,000. Why, that's barely enough for Muslim doctors in Britain to buy plastic explosives to blow up airplanes!

How much does Pinch Sulzberger make for driving The New York Times stock to an all-time low? Probably a lot more than your podiatrist.

In college, my roommate was in the chemistry lab Friday and Saturday nights while I was dancing on tables at the Chapter House. A few years later, she was working 20-hour days as a resident at Mount Sinai doing liver transplants while I was frequenting popular Upper East Side drinking establishments. She was going to Johns Hopkins for yet more medical training while I was skiing and following the Grateful Dead. Now she vacations in places like Rwanda and Darfur with Doctors Without Borders while I'm going to Paris.

(Has anyone else noticed the nonexistence of a charitable organization known as "Lawyers Without Borders"?)

She makes $380 for an emergency appendectomy, or one-ten-thousandth of what John Edwards made suing doctors like her, and one-fourth of what John Edwards' hairdresser makes for a single shag cut.

Edwards made $30 million bringing nonsense lawsuits based on junk science against doctors. To defend themselves from parasites like Edwards, doctors now pay hundreds of thousands of dollars in medical malpractice insurance every year.

But as the Times would note, doctors in Burkina Faso only get $25 and one goat per year.

As long as we're studying the health care systems of various socialist countries, are we allowed to notice that doctors in these other countries aren't constantly being sued by bottom-feeding trial lawyers stealing one-third of the income of people performing useful work like saving lives?

But the Democrats (and Fred Thompson) refuse to enact tort reform legislation to rein in these charlatans. After teachers and welfare recipients, the Democrats' most prized constituency is trial lawyers. The ultimate Democrat constituent would be a public schoolteacher on welfare who needed an abortion and was suing her doctor.

Doctors graduate at the top of their classes at college and then spend nearly a decade in grueling work at medical schools. Most doctors don't make a dime until they're in their early 30s, just in time to start paying off their six-figure student loans by saving people's lives. They have 10 times the IQ of trial lawyers and 1,000 times the character.

Yeah, let's go after those guys. On to nuns next!

But Times' readers responded to the editorial about doctors being overpaid with a slew of indignant letters -- not at the Times for making such an idiotic argument, but at doctors who earn an average of $200,000 per year. Letter writers praised the free medical care in places like Spain. ("Nightmare" in the Ann Coulter dictionary is defined as "having a medical emergency in Spain.")

One letter-writer proposed helping doctors by having the government take over another aspect of the economy -- the cost of medical education:

"If we are to restructure the system by which we pay doctors to match Europe, which seems prudent as well as inevitable, we must also finance education as Europeans do, by using state dollars to finance the full or majority cost of higher education, including professional school."

And then to reduce the cost of medical school, the government could finance "the full or majority cost" of construction costs of medical schools, and "the full or majority cost" of the trucks that bring the cement to the construction site and the "the full or majority cost" of coffee that the truck drivers drink while hauling the cement and ... it makes my head hurt.

I may have to see a doctor about this. I should probably get on the waiting list now in case Hillary gets elected.

That's how liberals think: To fix an industry bedeviled by government controls, we'll spread the coercion to yet more industries!

The only sane letter on the matter, I'm happy to report, came from the charming town of New Canaan, Conn., which means that I am not the only normal person who still reads the Times. Ray Groves wrote:

"Last week, I had the annual checkup for my 2000 Taurus. I paid $95 per hour for much needed body work. Next month, when I have my own annual physical, I expect and hope to pay a much higher rate to my primary care internist, who has spent a significant portion of his life training to achieve his position of responsibility."

posted April 10, 2008 05:31 PM            

Or to word it a different way, can we agree that when people are asked to rate something on a scale something like the following comes to mind?:

posted April 10, 2008 05:53 PM            

"acoustic, I'm going to make this a short history of what was under discussion when the Pew Poll first came up..and your incessant yammering about the word "most" and about that poll.
The issue under discussion when that poll came up several years ago was the lying press. The poll was used to attempt showing the exact opposite of what I said and it failed. The poll showed 79% of respondents didn't believe the Times is a highly credible source for news.

You live in your own little world of subjective reality. The people taking that poll live in the real world of "objective reality".

In that world, the world you have difficulty interacting with and in, the world of objective reality, the people who took that poll understand the English language. They are:

More intelligent than you
More objective than you
More rational than you
More logical than you
More reasonable than you

They understand the use of the word most; they know what it means as it was used.
Beyond that, their opinion about the press has been validated by time and events. Events I told you were going to come to pass as soon as I saw the lack of credibility they assigned to the press.

I told you news organizations have only one item to sell the public and if the public doesn't trust the press to sell them factual information then they'll stop paying for the product.

I told you the other thing newspapers and news magazines and broadcast news have to sell is advertising. No newspaper can make a profit from selling newspapers to consumers. It's the advertising revenues which make the newspaper business profitable or not...and newspaper advertising rates are tied to subscription numbers. When readership declines advertisers will not pay the high per column inch rates they formerly paid.

I told you the newspapers were in big trouble..after I read that poll.
Now acoustic in your world of subjective reality all is well. The people trust the press. But that's bullshiit and the facts on the ground prove it.

Since that poll was published, newspapers have taken a beating and it's not because more people get their news online. All those newspapers have online sites too. All those newspapers sell advertising for online readers to see.

Their revenues are way down, their stock prices are way down and there have been layoff, buyouts and general downsizing across a broad spectrum of news publications. Some pretty big newspapers have been sold as their profits declined.

When that poll was published the stock price of the NY Times was over $52 per share. NYT closed today at $19.33. Their share price has hit a low of $14.48 in late January this year.

NYT is not the only newspaper stock to show huge losses of share price. They're almost all in trouble.

The Pew Poll showed why and it was obvious to me what was going to happen. I told you way back then what was going to happen and it did happen.

Your bubble world of subjective reality is faulty. In the real world of objective reality cause and effect exist and it's been played out on this subject.

Now acoustic, I'm through with the subject of the Pew Poll. Enough time has been wasted proving what was always obvious to objective people in the real world.

Enough time has been wasted on your denials that "most" doesn't mean what all the dictionaries say it means and people understand it to mean. That you didn't get and still don't get it is your problem"

posted April 10, 2008 06:04 PM            

Democrats have leapt on reports of mold, rats and bureaucratic hurdles at Walter Reed Army Medical Center as further proof of President George Bush's failed war policies.

To the contrary, the problems at Walter Reed are further proof of the Democrats' failed domestic policies — to wit, the civil service rules that prevent government employees from ever being fired. (A policy that also may account for Robert Byrd's longevity as a U.S. senator.)

Thanks to the Democrats, government employees have the world's most complicated set of job protection rules outside of the old East Germany. Oddly enough, this has not led to a dynamic workforce in the nation's capital.

Noticeably, the problems at Walter Reed are not with the doctors or medical care. The problems are with basic maintenance at the facility.

Unless U.S. Army generals are supposed to be spraying fungicide on the walls and crawling under beds to set rattraps, the slovenly conditions at Walter Reed are not their fault. The military is nominally in charge of Walter Reed, but — because of civil service rules put into place by Democrats — the maintenance crew can't be fired.

If the general "in charge" can't fire the people not doing their jobs, I don't know why he is being held responsible for them not doing their jobs.

You will find the exact same problems anyplace market forces have been artificially removed by the government and there is a total absence of incentives, competition, effective oversight, cost controls and so on. It's almost like a cause-and-effect thing.

The Washington Post could have done the same report on any government facility in the Washington, D.C., area.

In a typical story from the nation's capital, last year, a 38-year-old woman died at the hospital after her blood pressure dropped and a D.C. ambulance took 90 minutes to pick her up and take her to a hospital that was five minutes away. For 90 minutes, the 911 operator repeatedly assured the woman's sister that the ambulance was on its way.

You read these stories every few months in Washington.

New York Times reporter David Rosenbaum also died in Washington last year after being treated to the famed work ethic of the average government employee. Rosenbaum was mugged near his house and hit on the head with a pipe. A neighbor found him lying on the sidewalk and immediately called 911.

First, the ambulance got lost on the way to Rosenbaum. Then, instead of taking him to the closest emergency room, the ambulance took him to Howard University Hospital, nearly 30 minutes away, because one of the "emergency medical technicians" had personal business in the area.

Once he finally arrived at the hospital, Rosenbaum was left unattended on a gurney for 90 minutes because the "emergency medical technicians" had completely missed his head injury and listed him as "drunk" and "low priority."

Months later, the deputy mayor for public safety told The Washington Post that "to the best of his knowledge, no one involved in the incident had been fired."

No one has any authority over civil service employees in the nation's capital. Bush probably lives in terror of White House janitors. The White House bathroom could be flooding and he'd be told: "I'll get to you when I get to you. Listen, fella, you're fifth on my list. I'm not making any promises, just don't flush for the next week."

It's especially adorable how Democrats and the media are acting like these are the first rats ever sighted in the Washington, D.C., area. There are rats in the Capitol building. There are rats in The Washington Post building. Bush has seen rats. But let's leave Chuck Hagel out of this for now.

On "ABC News" last year, a CBS radio reporter described a rat jumping off the camera in the White House press briefing room in the middle of a press conference. (And a shrew sits right in the front!) The Washington Post called the White House press room — located between the residence and the Oval Office — "a broken-down, rat-infested fire trap." During David Gregory's stand-up report on MSNBC about the damage done to Republicans by conditions at Walter Reed, rats appeared to be scurrying on the ground behind him.

Instead of an investigative report on the problems at Walter Reed, how about an investigative report on what happens when the head of janitorial services at Walter Reed is told about the dirt, mold and rats at the facility? If it's before 2:30 in the afternoon and he's still at work and he hasn't taken a "sick day," a "vacation day," a "personal day" or a "mental health day," I predict the answer will be: "I'm on my break."

The Democrats' response is: We must pass even more stringent rules to ensure that all government employees get every single break so that public-sector unions will continue giving massive campaign donations to the Democrats.

This was, you will recall, the precise issue that led to a partisan battle over the Homeland Security bill a few years ago: Whether employees at an emergency terrorist response agency could be fired — as Republicans wanted — or if they would be subject to civil service rules and unfireable — as the Democrats wanted.

HELLO? HOMELAND SECURITY? THERE'S A BOMB IN THE WELL OF THE SENATE!

Sorry, not my job. Try the Department of Public Works.

When Republican Saxby Chambliss challenged Democrat Max Cleland in the 2002 Georgia Senate race, he ran an ad attacking Cleland for demanding civil service protections for workers at the Homeland Security Department. Naturally, Republicans were accused of hating veterans for mentioning Cleland's vote on the Homeland Security bill.

Now that the Democrats are once again pretending to give a damn about the troops by wailing about conditions at Walter Reed, how about some Republican — maybe Chambliss! — introduce a bill to remove civil service protections from employees at Walter Reed and all veterans' hospitals? You know, a bill that would actually address the problem.

posted April 10, 2008 06:10 PM            

Objectively, when people are asked to rate things on a scale, they break the scale down into meanings. Obviously, there are two opposite meanings at the ends of the polls. Any selections in between are naturally lesser variants of the extremes. This is logical is it not?

So, if that is logical, then clearly it is absolutely, 100% illogical to infer that the overwhelming majority of people who chose '3' were saying they didn't have a general belief in the truth-telling capabilities of the newspapers. Column 3 was the most chosen column for all of those publications. As such it's of vital importance that you understand Column 3 is a lesser variant of Column 4, which Pew characterized as "highly believable." A step down from "highly believable," is at the very least "believable."

Furthermore, when I show you subsequent study, which shows the favorability of these papers overtime, it very clearly states that national newspapers such as the NYT retain 60% favorability despite the public's desire to find fault. I'm quite certain a 60% favorability rate does not mesh with a nearly 80% disbelief rate. That is not logical, nor reconcilable.

Now, you want to go on about "most," and how I'm not in comprehension of it, you better start making a hell of a lot better argument.

Telling me that NYT along with newspapers of all varieties are struggling DOESN'T speak to this issue, and it sure as hell DOESN'T speak to your obvious misunderstanding of the Pew chart. We are having a battle of comprehension. I'm here. You're here. Let's finish the discussion.

posted April 10, 2008 06:48 PM            

"acoustic, I'm going to make this a short history of what was under discussion when the Pew Poll first came up..and your incessant yammering about the word "most" and about that poll.
The issue under discussion when that poll came up several years ago was the lying press. The poll was used to attempt showing the exact opposite of what I said and it failed. The poll showed 79% of respondents didn't believe the Times is a highly credible source for news.

You live in your own little world of subjective reality. The people taking that poll live in the real world of "objective reality".

In that world, the world you have difficulty interacting with and in, the world of objective reality, the people who took that poll understand the English language. They are:

More intelligent than you
More objective than you
More rational than you
More logical than you
More reasonable than you

They understand the use of the word most; they know what it means as it was used.
Beyond that, their opinion about the press has been validated by time and events. Events I told you were going to come to pass as soon as I saw the lack of credibility they assigned to the press.

I told you news organizations have only one item to sell the public and if the public doesn't trust the press to sell them factual information then they'll stop paying for the product.

I told you the other thing newspapers and news magazines and broadcast news have to sell is advertising. No newspaper can make a profit from selling newspapers to consumers. It's the advertising revenues which make the newspaper business profitable or not...and newspaper advertising rates are tied to subscription numbers. When readership declines advertisers will not pay the high per column inch rates they formerly paid.

I told you the newspapers were in big trouble..after I read that poll.
Now acoustic in your world of subjective reality all is well. The people trust the press. But that's bullshiit and the facts on the ground prove it.

Since that poll was published, newspapers have taken a beating and it's not because more people get their news online. All those newspapers have online sites too. All those newspapers sell advertising for online readers to see.

Their revenues are way down, their stock prices are way down and there have been layoff, buyouts and general downsizing across a broad spectrum of news publications. Some pretty big newspapers have been sold as their profits declined.

When that poll was published the stock price of the NY Times was over $52 per share. NYT closed today at $19.33. Their share price has hit a low of $14.48 in late January this year.

NYT is not the only newspaper stock to show huge losses of share price. They're almost all in trouble.

The Pew Poll showed why and it was obvious to me what was going to happen. I told you way back then what was going to happen and it did happen.

Your bubble world of subjective reality is faulty. In the real world of objective reality cause and effect exist and it's been played out on this subject.

Now acoustic, I'm through with the subject of the Pew Poll. Enough time has been wasted proving what was always obvious to objective people in the real world.

posted April 10, 2008 06:48 PM            

Rumored ex-Marine John Murtha, Democrat congressman from Pennsylvania, has become the darling of the cut-and-run crowd for trying to place absurd restrictions on our troops, amounting to withdrawal from Iraq. Were Arab sheiks whispering into his ear?

In case you missed the video on "I Love the '80s," Rep. Murtha was caught on tape negotiating bribes with Arab sheiks during the FBI's Abscam investigation in 1980. The Abscam investigation was conducted by Jimmy Carter's Justice Department, not right-wing Republicans.

On tape, Murtha told the undercover FBI agent: "When I make a f***in' deal I want to make sure that I know exactly what I'm doing and ... what I'm sayin' is, a few investments in my district ..."

It is a profound and shocking fact that Murtha even showed up at this meeting, knowing he was going to be negotiating bribe money with Arabs.

Murtha added that he wanted the investment in his district to look like it was done "legitimately ... when I say legitimately, I'm talking about so these ******** up here can't say to me ... 'Jesus Christ, ah, this happened,' then he (someone else), in order to get immunity so he doesn't go to jail, he starts talking and fingering people and then the son of a ***** all falls apart."

For those of you just joining us, no, this isn't a scene from "The Sopranos." It's an actual conversation between a U.S. congressman and an FBI agent posing as an Arab sheik offering a bribe.

Murtha further said that although he was not prepared to accept cash at that time, "after we've done some business, then I might change my mind." You know, just what you or I or any American might say when offered a cash bribe by an Arab.

The ever-helpful media exposed the Abscam investigation before it could be completed, and consequently we were deprived of the possibility of seeing Murtha on tape stuffing cash in his trousers like the other Democratic congressmen (and one "moderate" Republican) convicted in the Abscam investigation. Or, as Al Gore used to call such a fund-raising procedure, "community outreach."

But Murtha was willing to trade favors in return for investment in his district — and suggested he might take cash down the line. In other words, Murtha wasn't calling for an immediate surrender of his scruples and principles, but rather a phased withdrawal of them.

In fact, according to a co-conspirator's affidavit, it didn't take long for Murtha to warm to the idea of a cash bribe.

About a month after the taped meeting with Murtha, the co-conspirator, lawyer Howard L. Criden, wrote in his affidavit: "Yesterday, Feb. 1, (Democrat Congressman Frank 'Topper') Thompson called and told me that Murtha was ready to go," adding that Murtha had indicated "during January that he was not ready to do business but would be willing to do so in the future."

Criden said: "Congressman Murtha of Pennsylvania would be willing to enter into an agreement similar to that of the other congressmen" — i.e., taking $50,000 cash from the sheiks for legislative favors.

Criden's affidavit went unsigned, according to his lawyer, Richard Ben-Veniste, solely because of the resulting publicity when the press blew the investigation, leading Criden to believe the prosecutors had broken the deal.

Criden was later convicted and sentenced to six years in prison, along with seven members of Congress (six of them Democrats). Murtha was an unindicted co-conspirator. (Would that Patrick Fitzgerald were prosecuting the case!)

As an attorney, let me give you the technical legal description of what occurred: John Murtha was as guilty as O.J. Simpson.

Now Murtha issues high moral pronouncements on the war and denounces our troops, calling the U.S. military "broken, worn out" and "living hand to mouth." Gee, too bad there aren't any Arab sheiks offering them cash bribes. Sounds like they could really use the money.

Murtha accuses Marines of killing "innocent civilians in cold blood" during an ongoing investigation. Semper Fi, Mr. Dirty Congressman.

Instead of toppling brutal dictators and spreading democracy in the Middle East, Murtha apparently prefers the old way of doing business with Arabs, where he gets juice from the sheiks.

The Democrats' cheat-sheet on Murtha demands that it be shouted out: "He didn't take a bribe on tape!" That's their defense. There is not even a pretense that he didn't talk to Arabs about a bribe.

He negotiated with a prostitute at the bar, but never consummated the deal. He's a saint! Let him be my congressman!

It's the Clintonian "incompetency" defense: Murtha was willing to be bribed; he just never got his act together enough to pick up the cash. I may not be honest, but I'm way too disorganized to actually take bribes!

Fine, Murtha was never convicted. Neither was Nixon. Venal hack John Murtha was willing to sell his country's interests to Arab sheiks. This is the man Democrats have put up to lead the anti-war charge today, demanding that the commander in chief stop deploying troops against his Arab friends.

posted April 10, 2008 06:52 PM            

Shall I make another thread asking people a question similar to what Pew asked, and then poll them on what their Column 3 meant?

posted April 10, 2008 11:24 PM            

It's nice to have a president who is not so sleazy that not a single Supreme Court justice shows up for his State of the Union address (Bill Clinton, January 1999, when eight justices stayed away to protest Clinton's disregard for the law and David Souter skipped the speech to watch "Sex and the City").

Speaking of which, the horny hick's wife finally ended the breathless anticipation by announcing that she is running for president. I studied tapes of Hillary feigning surprise at hearing about Monica to help me look surprised upon learning that she's running.

As long as we have revived the practice of celebrating multicultural milestones (briefly suspended when Condoleezza Rice became the first black female to be secretary of state), let us pause to note that Mrs. Clinton, if elected, would be the first woman to become president after her husband had sex with an intern in the Oval Office.

According to the famed "polls" — or, as I call them, "surveys of uninformed people who think it's possible to get the answer wrong" — Hillary is the current front-runner for the Democrats. Other than the massive case of narcolepsy her name inspires, this would cause me not the slightest distress — except for the fact that the Republicans' current front-runners are John McCain and Rudy Giuliani.

Fortunately, polls at this stage are nothing but name recognition contests, so please stop asking me to comment on them. "Arsenic" and "proctologist" have sky-high name recognition going for them, too.

In January, two years before the 2000 presidential election, the leading Republican candidate in New Hampshire was ... Liddy Dole (WMUR-TV/CNN poll, Jan. 12, 1999). In the end, Liddy Dole's most successful run turned out to be a mad dash from her husband Bob after he accidentally popped two Viagras.

At this stage before the 1992 presidential election, the three leading Democratic candidates were, in order: Mario Cuomo, Jesse Jackson and Lloyd Bentsen (Public Opinion Online, Feb. 21, 1991).

Only three months before the 1988 election, William Schneider cheerfully reported in The National Journal that Michael Dukakis beat George Herbert Walker Bush in 22 of 25 polls taken since April of that year. Bush did considerably better in the poll taken on Election Day.

The average poll respondent reads the above information and immediately responds that the administrations of presidents Cuomo, Dole and Dukakis were going in "the wrong direction."

Still and all, Mrs. Clinton is probably the real front-runner based on: (1) the multiple millions of dollars she has raised, and (2) the fact that her leading Democratic opponent is named "Barack Hussein Obama." Or, as he's known at CNN, "Osama." Or, as he's known on the Clinton campaign, "The Soft Bigotry of Low Expectations."

Mrs. Clinton's acolytes are floating the idea of Hillary as another Margaret Thatcher to get past the question, "Can a woman be elected president?" This is based on the many, many things Hillary Clinton and Margaret Thatcher have in common, such as the lack of a Y chromosome and ... hmmm, you know, I think that's it.

Girl-power feminists who got where they are by marrying men with money or power — Hillary Clinton, Nancy Pelosi, Arianna Huffington and John Kerry — love to complain about how hard it is for a woman to be taken seriously.

It has nothing to do with their being women. It has to do with their cheap paths to power. Kevin Federline isn't taken seriously either.

It is as easy to imagine Americans voting for someone like Margaret Thatcher or Condoleezza Rice for president as it is difficult to imagine them voting for someone like Hillary. (Or Kevin Federline.) Hillary isn't piggybacking on Thatcher because she's a woman, she's piggybacking on Thatcher because Thatcher made it on her own, which Hillary did not.

But the most urgent question surrounding Hillary's candidacy is: How will the Democrats out-macho us if Hillary is their presidential nominee? Unlike their last presidential nominee, she doesn't even have any fake Purple Hearts.

Sen. Jim Webb, who managed to give the rebuttal to President Bush's State of the Union address Tuesday night without challenging the president to a fistfight (well done, Jim!), won his election last November by portraying himself as one of the new gun-totin' Democrats.

He once opposed women in the military by calling the idea "a horny woman's dream." But — as some of us warned you — it appears that Webb has already been fitted for his tutu by Rahm Emanuel.

Webb began his rebuttal by complaining that we don't have national health care and aren't spending enough on "education" (teachers unions). In other words, he talked about national issues that only are national issues because of this country's rash experiment with women's suffrage. I guess we should all be relieved that at least Webb's response did not involve putting a young boy's penis into a man's mouth, as characters in his novels are wont to do.

posted April 11, 2008 10:21 AM            

From the attacks of 9/11 to Monday's school shooting, after every mass murder there is an overwhelming urge to "do something" to prevent a similar attack.

But since Adam ate the apple and let evil into the world, deranged individuals have existed.

Most of the time they can't be locked up until it's too late. It's not against the law to be crazy — in some jurisdictions it actually makes you more viable as a candidate for public office.

It's certainly not against the law to be an unsociable loner. If it were, Ralph Nader would be behind bars right now, where he belongs. Mass murder is often the first serious crime unbalanced individuals are caught committing — as appears to be in the case of the Virginia Tech shooter.

The best we can do is enact policies that will reduce the death toll when these acts of carnage occur, as they will in a free and open society of 300 million people, most of whom have cable TV.

Only one policy has ever been shown to deter mass murder: concealed-carry laws. In a comprehensive study of all public, multiple-shooting incidents in America between 1977 and 1999, the inestimable economists John Lott and Bill Landes found that concealed-carry laws were the only laws that had any beneficial effect.

And the effect was not insignificant. States that allowed citizens to carry concealed handguns reduced multiple-shooting attacks by 60 percent and reduced the death and injury from these attacks by nearly 80 percent.

Apparently, even crazy people prefer targets that can't shoot back. The reason schools are consistently popular targets for mass murderers is precisely because of all the idiotic "Gun-Free School Zone" laws.

From the people who brought you "zero tolerance," I present the Gun-Free Zone! Yippee! Problem solved! Bam! Bam! Everybody down! Hey, how did that deranged loner get a gun into this Gun-Free Zone?

It isn't the angst of adolescence. Plenty of school shootings have been committed by adults with absolutely no reason to be at the school, such as Laurie Dann, who shot up the Hubbard Woods Elementary School in Winnetka, Ill., in 1988; Patrick Purdy, who opened fire on children at Cleveland Elementary School in Stockton, Calif., in 1989; and Charles Carl Roberts, who murdered five schoolgirls at an Amish school in Lancaster County, Pa., last year.

Oh by the way, the other major "Gun-Free Zone" in America is the post office.

But instantly, on the day of the shooting at Virginia Tech, the media were already promoting gun control and pre-emptively denouncing right-wingers who point out that gun control enables murderers rather than stopping them.

Liberals get to lobby for gun control, but we're disallowed from arguing back. That's how good their arguments are. They're that good.

Needless to say, Virginia Tech is a Gun-Free School Zone — at least until last Monday. The gunman must not have known. Imagine his embarrassment! Perhaps there should be signs.

Virginia Tech even prohibits students with concealed-carry permits from carrying their guns on campus. Last year, the school disciplined a student for carrying a gun on campus, despite his lawful concealed-carry permit. If only someone like that had been in Norris Hall on Monday, this massacre could have been ended a lot sooner.

But last January, the Virginia General Assembly shot down a bill that would have prevented universities like Virginia Tech from giving sanctuary to mass murderers on college campuses in Virginia by disarming students with concealed-carry permits valid in the rest of the state.

Virginia Tech spokesman Larry Hincker praised the legislature for allowing the school to disarm lawful gun owners on the faculty and student body, thereby surrendering every college campus in the state to deranged mass murderers, saying: "I'm sure the university community is appreciative of the General Assembly's actions because this will help parents, students, faculty and visitors feel safe on our campus."

posted April 11, 2008 11:08 AM              

i agree with you on how different those quotes are from her other work. like i said there seems to be a dual personality, when she is cool, her articles are masterpieces. if she is channelinh her rage she makes the same statement a Jehadi terrorist would make. i jnow JW thinks its fair, but thats like saying she is only ad bad as them.