Monthly Archives: May 2014

A Bit of Paranoia

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In 2010, a report from Amnesty International painted a grim picture of North Korea’s crumbling health care system, with witnesses and health care workers recounting barely-functioning hospitals, multiple medication shortages and epidemics caused by malnutrition.

And

US military officials soon grew concerned over the possibility of a lethal pathogen originating within North Korea, as the nation’s health care officials would be nearly powerless to stop the spread of infection. And if such an illness were to continue to expand, a global pandemic would likely occur.

But what if this is deliberate? Baby Kim isn’t stupid, and he is insane enough to give serious thought to such a thing. Northern Korea can’t invade with their army, so might they invade with disease? They’d infect a major fraction of their population (they’re already allowing a major fraction to become infected) and let a goodly number leak across the DMZ, which really is quite porous from the north’s side. And many of these diseases can spread via airborne vectors, against which the DMZ is no barrier at all.

A thug’s version of Napoléon’s levée en masse.

The Welfare Cliff from another Perspective

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I, among a number of other folks, wrote about this a short while back.

Following is the money graph from that post, from the perspective of the present post:WelfareCliff

Here’s another perspective on the matter, the point of “present post,” from AEIdeas‘ James Pethokoukis, who cited John Merline’s article for the Richmond Fed.

Writing about the “decline in labor force participation as a result of reported illness or disability,” Merline had this [emphasis added]:

Another driving force, Autor and Duggan found, is the fact that the value of disability benefits relative to wages has risen “substantially” since the late 1970s, because of the way initial benefits are calculated. That’s particularly true at the lower end of the income spectrum. When the value of SSDI benefits and the value of the Medicare benefits that SSDI enrollees qualify for are combined, the share of income replaced by the disability program climbed from 68% in 1984 to 86% in 2002 among lower-income men aged 50-61.

That’s an enormous marginal tax rate that must be paid in order to get a better job.

Federal Immigration Hypocrisy

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[Cateret, NJ, Mayor Daniel] Reiman said yesterday that although he assured officials from the US Citizenship and Immigration Services that the prayer would be nondenominational, the agency declined to allow the prayer.

“They refused to budge on that.”

And, on refusing to allow any prayer at all, Reiman had no choice but to not allow the Federal ceremony to use city facilities.

Ironically, the whole thing came to a head just a day after the Supreme Court’s ruling in Town of Greece v Galloway that it was entirely appropriate that a local government open a ceremony with a prayer.

A spokeswoman for the federal agency, Katie Tichacek Kaplan, told The Associated Press that the agency has a long-standing policy to ensure that naturalization ceremonies are “conducted in a meaningful manner which is welcoming and inclusive and excludes political, commercial and religious statements.”

Never mind that this is a time to welcome our new citizens into our heritage—into their new nation’s heritage—as a Judeo-Christian nation, into our society with its Judeo-Christian underpinnings, into our culture, the benefits of which are what drew these immigrants in the first place and which encouraged them to take the five-year march toward citizenship. That’s the true meaning of the manner of welcome.

It’s not a time to encourage fractionation of our culture by discouraging their assimilation.

Reiman added

The irony is it’s in the Pledge [of Allegiance] and it’s in the oath [of citizenship]. It didn’t really make sense. They acknowledge that prayer is part of many, many services.

Here is the oath of citizenship that newly naturalized immigrants take on achieving citizenship [emphasis added]:

I hereby declare, on oath, that I absolutely and entirely renounce and abjure all allegiance and fidelity to any foreign prince, potentate, state, or sovereignty, of whom or which I have heretofore been a subject or citizen; that I will support and defend the Constitution and laws of the United States of America against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I will bear arms on behalf of the United States when required by the law; that I will perform noncombatant service in the Armed Forces of the United States when required by the law; that I will perform work of national importance under civilian direction when required by the law; and that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; so help me God.

And here is that nasty Pledge of Allegiance (which too many circles are trying to purge from our schools and public ceremonies, and too many others have simply allowed to lapse) [emphasis added]:

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

But the Feds don’t want even a nondenominational prayer uttered at a ceremony celebrating the naturalization of new American citizens.

Hmm….

“Elections” in Ukraine

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Pro-Russian “insurgents” in the Ukrainian oblasts of Donetsk and Luhansk are claiming that 90% of voters backed sovereignty and separation from Ukraine (and eventual incorporation into Russia). (Why is that the supporters of such things always claim 90% of the vote went their way? Why not something more plausible, like 55%, even 62%?)

That 90% number is especially interesting here, given the demographics of those oblasts. 30% of the folks living in Luhansk, the oblast that forms the eastern tip of Ukraine, jutting into Russia, are native Ukrainian speakers, not Russian, which suggests they’re ethnic Ukrainian, not ethnic Russian (leaving aside the understanding that all of the citizens there are Ukrainian citizens, regardless of ethnicity). 24% of Donetsk, which sits on the southwestern boundary of Luhansk and fronts on the Sea of Azov (which opens into the Black Sea, and thence into the Mediterranean), are native Ukrainian speakers.

To get to that 90% number, then, two-thirds of those ethnic Ukrainians in Luhansk and three-fifths of them in Donetsk would have had to have favored leaving Ukraine, also. That’s not very plausible.

Alternatively, the ethnic Ukrainians would have had to have not voted at all in significant number—afraid to vote, apathetic (unlikely in that charged atmosphere), or…. Which makes the “elections” not at all representative of what the folks truly want.

Also, keep in mind that these two oblasts, in 1991, voted for independence from Russia by an 83%-13% margin.

Hmm….

Who Can’t Handle the Truth?

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Democrats, controlling the Senate, blocked efforts to join the House investigation of the Benghazi fiasco.

Democratic Senator Bob Menendez (D, NJ) objected, saying the probe is politically motivated and without merit.

Of course, blocking Senate participation in a joint investigation isn’t at all politically motivated or meritless.

If this thing truly is mere politics, why not join in, with enthusiasm? Why not push for full release of unredacted documents and emails and etc from State, DoD, and the White House? Why not expose all of these to the light of day and to the eyes of Americans? If there really is no there there, that will become painfully obvious, in short order, to the Republicans’ severe damage.

Of what, then, are the Democrats so afraid? That there is a significant there there?