The Non-PC Zone

[Long Road]

The Non-PC Zone

If it wasn't for US independence there would B no modern Australia. Reallocation of convicts from the US to OZ increase dthe population and created an unique culture. Ultimately the constitution was modelled on that of the US, incorporating much of the Bill of Rights. Some Brit ideas were retained eg: The Head of Govt can't also B the Head of State

[Long Road]

The Non-PC Zone

BTW. Despite popular notions most of the convicts sent to Australia were literate people: Professionals who could buy or influence their way out of a hanging, or political prisoners: separatists etc

[Long Road]

The Non-PC Zone

Look the fact is that migrations and invasions have been happening since the year dot. I'm no black arm band historian. But we in OZ celebrate Austalia Day on the 26th Jan... the day of British habitation. No mention of the 200000 Aboriginal Aussies that were already here. Most of them died of smallpox, typhoid, Flu etc without ever seeing an European. Sound Familiar US?

[Long Road]

The Non-PC Zone

BTW Baclofen Zen. Please explain? I'm on NAL which is V effective

[Long Road]

The Non-PC Zone

Ah! Type blind! Sorry

[IAD]

The Non-PC Zone

Det......more Liberals here than Independents and Conservatives. Good luck.......Ha! IAD. ( I'm Independent, my son a Libertarian...Ha! ) )

[IAD]

The Non-PC Zone

Long Road............Their was a gold rush that helped immagration from the Us to OZ. About the problems the aboriginal natives suffered upon being "Discovered"......(I'm part Native American) We ran the whole gambit.....French, Britts, Spanish..... they also brought poor enslaved Africans......yes they all mange to leave their mark, for good and bad....Ha!

[Determinator]

The Non-PC Zone

IAD, I'm a registered Libertarian currently, but if Dr Basso would run I'd switch to Indy in a heartbeat.

and yes Zen I was dissing on the Brits the Aussies used to make the most horrid jokes about them, and the Irish.

Can't we all just get along?

OK, off to my local tea party. Freeeeeeeeeedddddooooooommmmmmmm!!!!!!!

[Heavenly]

The Non-PC Zone

are you allowed a non-pc zone ... I love it but have you asked the clique if you can have it ? Lmao

[Determinator]

The Non-PC Zone

not the dreaded 'clique test' !!!!!!! the humanity!

[Determinator]

The Non-PC Zone

I hope they follow through with criminal investigation as rumored in this. just disgusting. Does this administration think they are our monarchs? the EPA's own report indicated they were fearful of giving all the facts because it was 'not the direction the Obama admin was going in".
we are not free people. wake up.

Inhofe: Cap & Trade DOA

[Determinator]

The Non-PC Zone

Ok, if we're going to be non PC we must talk about the dreaded evil 'guns' (screaming, scampering)

seriously though...many members have asked me by PM about guns and gun ownership as it relates to self defense. I've suggested putting together a thread on the subject and they were enthusiastic about the idea. I'll just merge it into this thread out of practicality. I'll start off with this from professor John R. Lott Jr. I invite questions on this, or other questions. Don't be shy


Cold, Hard Facts on Gun Control
http://www.tsra.com/Lott6.htm ^ | John Lott
Posted on July 14, 2003 4:34:11 AM PDT by Mean Daddy

America may indeed be obsessed with guns, but much of what passes as fact simply isn't true. The news media's focus on only tragic outcomes, while ignoring tragic events that were avoided, may be responsible for some misimpressions. Horrific events like the recent shooting in Arkansas receive massive news coverage, as they should, but the 2.5 million times each year that people use guns defensively are never discussed--including cases where public shootings are stopped before they happen.

Unfortunately, these misimpressions have real costs for people's safety. Many myths needlessly frighten people and prevent them from defending themselves most effectively.

Myth No. 1: When one is attacked, passive behavior is the safest approach.

The Department of Justice's National Crime Victimization Survey reports that the probability of serious injury from an attack is 2.5 times greater for women offering no resistance than for women resisting with a gun. Men also benefit from using a gun, but the benefits are smaller: offering no resistance is 1.4 times more likely to result in serious injury than resisting with a gun.

Myth No. 2: Friends or relatives are the most likely killers. The myth is usually based on two claims: 1) 58 percent of murder victims are killed by either relatives or acquaintances and 2) anyone could be a murderer.

With the broad definition of "acquaintances" used in the FBI's Uniform Crime Reports, most victims are indeed classified as knowing their killer. However, what is not made clear is that acquaintance murder primarily includes drug buyers killing drug pushers, cabdrivers killed by first-time customers, gang members killing other gang members, prostitutes killed by their clients, and so on. Only one city, Chicago, reports a precise breakdown on the nature of acquaintance killings: between 1990 and 1995 just 17 percent of murder victims were either family members, friends, neighbors and/or roommates.

Murderers also are not your average citizen. For example, about 90 percent of adult murderers have already had a criminal record as an adult. Murderers are overwhelmingly young males with low IQs and who have difficult times getting along with others. Furthermore, unfortunately, murder is disproportionately committed against blacks and by blacks.

Myth No. 3: The United States has such a high murder rate because Americans own so many guns.

There is no international evidence backing this up. The Swiss, New Zealanders and Finns all own guns as frequently as Americans, yet in 1995 Switzerland had a murder rate 40 percent lower than Germany's, and New Zealand had one lower than Australia's. Finland and Sweden have very different gun ownership rates, but very similar murder rates. Israel, with a higher gun ownership rate than the U.S., has a murder rate 40 percent below Canada's. When one studies all countries rather than just a select few as is usually done, there is absolutely no relationship between gun ownership and murder.

Myth No. 4: If law-abiding citizens are allowed to carry concealed handguns, people will end up shooting each other after traffic accidents as well as accidentally shooting police officers.

Millions of people currently hold concealed handgun permits, and some states have issued them for as long as 60 years. Yet, only one permit holder has ever been arrested for using a concealed handgun after a traffic accident and that case was ruled as self-defense. The type of person willing to go through the permitting process is extremely law-abiding. In Florida, almost 444,000 licenses were granted from 1987 to 1997, but only 84 people have lost their licenses for felonies involving firearms. Most violations that lead to permits being revoked involve accidentally carrying a gun into restricted areas, like airports or schools. In Virginia, not a single permit holder has committed a violent crime. Similarly encouraging results have been reported for Kentucky, Nevada, North Carolina, South Carolina, Texas and Tennessee (the only other states where information is available).

Myth No. 5: The family gun is more likely to kill you or someone you know than to kill in self-defense.

The studies yielding such numbers never actually inquired as to whose gun was used in the killing. Instead, if a household owned a gun and if a person in that household or someone they knew was shot to death while in the home, the gun in the household was blamed. In fact, virtually all the killings in these studies were committed by guns brought in by an intruder. No more than four percent of the gun deaths can be attributed to the homeowner's gun. The very fact that most people were killed by intruders also surely raises questions about why they owned guns in the first place and whether they had sufficient protection.

How many attacks have been deterred from ever occurring by the potential victims owning a gun? My own research finds that more concealed handguns, and increased gun ownership generally, unambiguously deter murders, robbery, and aggravated assaults. This is also in line with the well-known fact that criminals prefer attacking victims that they consider weak.

These are only some of the myths about guns and crime that drive the public policy debate. We must not lose sight of the ultimate question: Will allowing law-abiding citizens to own guns save lives? The evidence strongly indicates that it does.

[QuitinTime]

The Non-PC Zone

Not only Lott but Dr Gary Kleck tromped on a bunch of the anti-gun nonsense put out by these groups who are all about disarming you and I while their supporters walk around with armed body guards, years ago - its nothing new - the data is out there if you want it.

I have a friend who had a state judicial report run by his state rep - it clearly showed a complete lack of enforcement on gun crime statutes in a state which has some of the strictest laws in the country. So basically they have the laws which only the honest people obey and the criminals who by nature don't usually obey laws are not prosecuted by these laws so frankly WTF.

The only purpose of disarming you is to fool people who don't want to pay attention into believing their government will make them safe. Hence get them more votes. You aren't safe - cops cannot and will not protect individuals - their job is to solve crimes and catch bad guys after the damage is done.

[Determinator]

The Non-PC Zone

right you are QuitinTime and many folks are dreadfully unaware of this supreme court ruling:

Warren v. District of Columbia is one of the leading cases of this type. Two women were upstairs in a townhouse when they heard their roommate, a third women, being attacked downstairs by intruders. They phoned the police several times and were assured that officers were on the way. After about 30 minutes, when their roommate's screams had stopped, they assumed that the police had finally arrived. When the two women went downstairs, they saw that, in fact, the police never came, but the intruders were still there. As the Warren court graphically states in the opinion: "For the next fourteen hours the women were held captive, raped, robbed, beaten, forced to commit sexual acts upon each other, and made to submit to the sexual demands of their attackers." The three women sued the District of Columbia for failing to protect them, but D.C.'s highest court exonerated the District and its police, saying that it is a "fundamental principle of American law that a government and its agents are under no general duty to provide public services, such as police protection, to any individual citizen" (Warren v. District of Columbia, 444 A.2d 1 (D.C. Ct. of Ap., 1981). Just what did happen to "provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity" anyways?

[Determinator]

The Non-PC Zone

under this administration it makes more sense to replace their term "reform" with what it really means: destruction.

a little healthcare 'reform' anyone?


Health care Never Never Land
by Bob Barr
as published in The Atlanta Journal Constitution
Monday, July 20, 2009 at 9:00 AM

In "Sicko," iconoclastic filmmaker Michael Moore extols the virtue of health care in such liberal "paradises" as the United Kingdom and Cuba. Leaving his audience to wonder where he would choose to go for treatment if he were facing a life-threatening illness — the People's Hospital in Havana or the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn. — Moore exhibits the same Alice-in-Wonderland delusion that has settled over the Obama administration.
A majority of members of Congress, too, seem to believe that if only enough bureaucracy and taxpayer dollars are thrown at the health care "crisis," then everyone in the country will have their every medical need met, when they want it, and at much reduced cost. Such a mind set turns Peter Pan's Never Never Land into a reality show.
For starters, advocates of the House legislation might want to talk to governors of those states, like Massachusetts, that have already implemented "universal" coverage plans. Increasing program costs, coupled with decreased state revenues as a result of the economic downturn, are causing serious fiscal problems and are forcing those states to consider cutbacks in coverage.
However, witnessing the irrational, "gotta-do-this-now" push in our nation's capitol to pass comprehensive health care "reform" within the next few weeks, it is obvious the proponents of Obama-care are not interested in anyone throwing the cold water of fiscal reality on their parade.
The House version of the legislation, unveiled by Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) last week, includes substantial mandates on American businesses (including a severe, 8 percent payroll tax on any business that fails to offer health insurance coverage to its employees). Still, the Pollyannaish Pelosi claimed (with a straight face) it would "lower costs to businesses." This is government logic at its finest — you lower the cost of doing business by raising taxes on those businesses.
Pelosi's obvious inability to grasp even the most basic of economic concepts was further displayed when she claimed that the "costs to consumers," too, would be lowered. Apparently, this would be accomplished by placing a new surtax on those American consumers whose income exceeded the levels deemed worthy by the legislators.
Analysts of the 1,000-plus page legislation calculate its 10-year cost to exceed $1 trillion. Other experts fear such a figure greatly underestimates its true cost. Even the Congressional Budget Office calculates that the government subsidy for health care coverage will amount to some $6,000 per person within the next decade, which figures to more than $1.8 trillion.
Pelosi's bill would also create a government-run insurance plan to compete with private insurers. Such a scenario, of course, is never a fair "competition," because the government "owner" can always print money, spend borrowed money indefinitely, operate without regard for cost-benefit analysis, and threaten legal sanctions for those who fail to comply. None of these remedies are available to businesses (except, of course, for the "new" General Motors).
The smoke-and-mirrors approach is evident also in the fact that high-income taxpayers, who would already be taxed in order to pay for the "universal" coverage for their less-well-off compatriots, would face escalating taxes if the government fails in the years ahead to achieve targeted "savings" in Medicaid and Medicare. In other words, the government will set "savings targets," but if it fails to meet them, it is taxpayers who will pay the penalty, not those members of Congress or federal bureaucrats who decide how much to spend on the entitlement programs.
Other industries, including pharmaceuticals, will face increased taxes as well, in order to pay for this "reform." The more successful drug makers will pay a higher percentage tax than their smaller, less successful colleagues. Once again, success in the business arena is punished in the government arena.
Truly, this bill is a monstrosity.

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Bob Barr, an Atlanta attorney, is a former member of Congress and Libertarian presidential candidate.
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