Tag Archives: Left

News

UK judge releases 16-year old rapist who rapes again eight days later

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Story from the UK Telegraph.

Excerpt:

The 16-year-old, who cannot be named for legal reasons, was given a three-year community order in June for the rape of a seven-year-old boy in Tameside, Greater Manchester.

The sentence, handed down by Judge Adrian Smith who had been told of the teenager’s other sexual assaults, was seen as unduly lenient by the police and the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS), who launched a legal challenge.

Eight days later, the teenager saw the five-year-old playing in the street near his home, lured him to his bedroom and repeatedly abused him. The father of the victim said yesterday: “Our son was abused not only by this lad, but also in effect by the British legal system that was supposed to protect him.

“I always thought people who commit serious offences like rape automatically go to prison – yet this boy was allowed to go free.”

[…]Judge Smith reached his decision although the boy had carried out a sex attack at the age of 13. The teenager was acquitted of that offence in 2007, but he later admitted inciting a six-year-old boy to engage in sexual activity.

The judge was also aware that the teenager had admitted engaging in sexual activity with a younger boy in the school lavatories, and in sentencing he also took into consideration three episodes of consensual sex with a fellow pupil.

I’m just finishing off Theodore Dalrymple’s “Life At The Bottom”, which is all about how secularism and socialism in the UK has destroyed the society completely. It’s ironic that I happened upon this story because I just finished the chapter on criminologists. Criminologists in the UK basically think that crime is just a legitimate way of expression frustration with one’s station in life. Crime isn’t really the fault of the criminal – crime is actually the fault of society because it makes these criminals feel badly.

Podcasts

Why Obama’s public option health care plan is a bad deal for young adults

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This podcast explains how Obama’s health care reform bill would require young people to buy insurance, while simultaneously preventing medical insurers from reducing their premium amounts in accordance with the lower health risks of young people.

The MP3 file is here.

The guest being interviewed is Aaron Yelowitz.

Bio excerpt:

  • Ph.D., Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Economics, 1994.
  • B.A., High Honors, University of California, Santa Barbara, Business Economics, 1990.
  • Department of Economics, University of Kentucky, Associate Professor, July 1, 2001-present.
  • Associate Editor, Journal of Public Economics, January 2004-present.

And you can read the paper that is being discussed in the podcast.

Excerpt from the abstract:

One of the most interesting questions about the health care overhaul now moving through Congress is how it would affect young adults. That legislation would force most or all Americans to purchase health insurance (an “individual mandate”) and would impose price controls on health insurance (“community rating”) that would limit insurers’ ability to offer lower premiums to low-risk enrollees.

Those provisions would drive premiums down for 55-year-olds but would drive them up for 25-year-olds—who are then implicitly subsidizing older adults. According to the Urban Institute, many young people could see their premiums double, whereas premiums for older adults could be cut in half.

[…]The irony is that Barack Obama won the presidency with 66 percent of the vote among adults aged 18 to 29. That’s a larger share than any presidential candidate has won in decades. Yet his health care overhaul could impose its greatest burdens on young adults.

This reminds me of young unmarried women voting overwhelmingly against marriage and family by electing big government socialists like Obama. This is not to even mention the 10.2% unemployment rate, which is worse for younger workers, as well as the massive national debt that will have to be paid for by young people. Why is that young people are so ignorant of economics that they vote against their own best interests?

Note: The Obama health care plan is also a bad deal for elderly patients on Medicare, since he is cutting 500 billion dollars from Medicare.

News

Ontario deficit to hit $25 billion as tax revenues plunge

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map-canada-political
Political Map of Canada

The problem with the left is that they think that the producers will just keep producing in the face of massive tax hikes and government spending. Sorry, but producers curtail their producing when they get to keep less and less of the fruits of their labor. Dalton McGuinty, the Liberal premier of the province of Ontario, is a prime example of this ignorance of incentives.

Consider this story from the National Post. (H/T Joanne from Blue Like You)

Excerpt:

Falling revenues and a burgeoning $24.7-billion deficit will force Ontario’s Liberal government into a new era of fiscal restraint, provincial Finance Minister Dwight Duncan said yesterday.

[…]According to economic figures released yesterday, Ontario is spending $4.8-billion more this year than it predicted just seven months ago. The increased spending includes $4-billion in auto-sector assistance and an additional $650-million to fund the province’s H1N1 response. Program spending has also risen by $812-million.

Tax revenues, meanwhile, are falling dramatically. They now stand at $5.8-billion less than the government predicted in last spring’s budget. Corporate taxes are $2.65-billion — or nearly one-third — lower than projections, while personal income tax is down $2.43-billion, or 10%.

[…]Conservatives, who have watched as the Liberals raised spending by nearly 60% over their first six years in office, were skeptical about the new pledge of austerity.”Dalton McGuinty is hard-wired to increase your taxes and increase spending,” Conservative leader Tim Hudak said. “The reality is, the only way to get spending under control is to change government.”

[…]One analyst said the province’s massive deficit is heightened by the growing size of Ontario’s health-care sector, expected to account for half the budget by 2015.

Earlier this week I blogged about the Federal Conservative Party of Canada, which gained two seats in the 2009 by-elections, bringing them to 145/308 in the House of Commons. They need 155 to have a majority.

States like New York and California are running into the same taxing and spending problems here at home. Even the Democrat Governor of Ohio Ted Strickland is in trouble, and threatening to cancel scheduled tax cuts.