Statistics

Did you know that the rates of violent crime and homicide in the U.S. have dropped by about 50% in the past twenty years?

Or that you are more than three times more likely to be a victim of violent crime in Great Britain than the U.S.?

In the ongoing debate over gun control, a lot of factual data gets ignored.

Choose Your Own Crime Stats

More on Harry

The article below explains nicely why Harry Reid has had no interest in passing a budget since April, 2009... baseline budgeting.

After the stimulus spending, which was supposed to be a one-time deal, all Harry had to do was break the law (by not passing a budget), and let baseline budgeting take over to keep spending at the newly elevated levels.  Far better to do that, from his point of view, than to formally announce to the public, through a budget, that the increased spending was here to stay. 

It's analogous to wiping one's prints off the murder weapon.

Congress, Baseline Budgeting, & Fraud

Harry Reid on the Budget: Not Interested

The article linked below is from February 2012. It is still applicable. It points out that Harry Reid (and Schumer, et al) claim that there is no need to pass a budget because of the Budget Control Act in August 2011, which was part of a debt ceiling deal.

But the Act was not an actual budget, which contains, inter alia, budget priorities and taxing proposals.  It simply set limits on overall spending. Moreover, the Act did not absolve the Senate of the legal requirement to pass an actual budget.

In other words, using the Act as an excuse for failing to pass a budget is pure nonsense.  It will be very interesting to see what unfolds if Republicans follow through on a 3-month debt ceiling increase while making a longer term increase conditional on the Senate obeying the law.  Obama, Reid, Pelosi, et al. will be forced to explain why the Senate's lawlessness is holding up another debt ceiling increase.

Senator Reid on the Budget: Not Interested


P.S. Using an Act passed in August 2011 as an excuse for not passing a budget fails to explain why Reid did not allow passage of a budget in April 2010 or April 2011, as required by law.  What does explain this failure is that Reid is an evil, evil man.

The Iceman Cometh

It seems like every year the global warming crowd tells us it was the warmest year on record, at least somewhere.

Other places, not so much...

China's Coldest Winter in Decades at New Low

Forget Global Warming: Alaska is Headed for an Ice Age

Russians Freeze to Death as Strongest-in-Decades Winter Hits