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Iraq myths

Juan Cole knocks down all 10 strawmen he set up. I respect Professor Juan Cole’s knowledge of the Middle East but his post today on “Top Ten Myths about Iraq 2007” was propaganda disguised as scholarship. His myths were myths. His No. 1 myth: “The reduction in violence in Iraq is mostly because of the escalation in the number of US troops, or ‘surge’.” He should know that the Surge was not just sending a bunch of troops into Iraq but also to work with the Iraqi people to get them to turn on al-Qaeda. That worked. I’m curious as to what caused the reduction in Cole’s opinion. They ran out of IEDs? The real myth is that the Surge failed. That’s what the left keeps telling itself. His No. 2: “Iraq has been ‘calm’ in fall of 2007 and the Iraqi public, despite some grumbling, is not eager for the US to depart.” Says who? Of course the Iraqi people want us out of there. And we want out. We are sending troops home as fast as we can turn things over to the Iraqis. The plan now is to end the occupation within a year. To be sure, the U.S. wants to keep 50,000 troops in Iraq permanently but they will be on bases far from the Iraqi population. This is similar to the last 50 years in South Korea, as well as post-occupation Germany, Italy and Japan. And on and on down the list. The professor picks on such things as women’s rights not being quite what they are in Israel. Well, it is a Muslim state. And here we get into the heart of the issue. Liberals like Professor Cole see Saddam Hussein’s Iraq as a wonderful paradise where women were free and homosexuals walked hand-in-hand along the moonlit promenade. The brutal truth is rape, kidnapping, and torture were the modus operandi for the Ba’ath government. Children starved as Hussein and his cronies at the United Nations lined their pockets with money diverted from the “Oil For Food” program. Iraq is not perfect, but it is far better off than it was under Hussein, the man who would still be in charge — and funding terrorism — if the left had its way. Cole’s post is here. More reaction at Memeorandum. Hat tip: Dr. Sanity. This entry was posted on Wednesday, December 26th, 2007 at 10:36 am and is filed under We won. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site. [lien] [EN]

A saner era? Myths about trans kids in schools, courtesy of FOX News

I’ve been following the media reactions to a story from Colorado about a young transgender girl in the 2nd grade and the usual gang of clowns are doing their “moral outrage” acts. It’s all fairly predictable, but it’s still fun and somewhat illuminating to pick apart what’s being said, so let’s take a look, shall we? For starters, if you have questions about young trans kids (and many people do) an excellent resource is the TransYouth Families Advocates FAQ. This group was started by four mothers with transgender children, and their material is written for families who are trying to deal with and understand their kids’ struggles with gender. The story in question is pretty straightforward. The school district has been working with TYFA and is doing a pretty great job at accommodating the trans child’s needs; they’re making sure pamphlets and counselors are available for students, parents, or faculty who have questions, and they’re making two of the school’s unisex bathrooms available for the trans child to use. Sounds fairly reasonable, right? Well of course, Neil Cavuto on FOX News doesn’t think so. (Video courtesy of GLAAD.) I can’t transcribe the whole thing, but he starts off by calling it a “bizzare story,” then brings on a child psychologist to serve as the punching bag for the usual interruptions and “what, are you crazy?” remarks that always seem to be the bread and butter over at FOX News. Let’s see how many myths and fabrications Cavuto managed to rack up: 1. “Bending over Backwards” Part 1: Schools have to build unisex bathrooms to accommodate kids like this, costing taxpayers thousands… or millions! Yep, he actually says “millions” at one point. Fact-check: nobody has ever actually built a unisex restroom on behalf of trans people, and I have to say it’s not likely to happen anytime soon, either. The most “extreme” accommodations that I’ve ever heard of in this regard are reclassifying one or two bathrooms among mnay as unisex or all-gender — and that’s usually in settings like colleges, or LGBT community centers. And that’s not even the case here; the NBC affiliate in Colorado that reported this story simply said “two unisex bathrooms in the building will be made available.” Of course it’s easier to whip out the hyperbole and assume that expensive construction is going on, but anyone who did a little fact-checking would realize that trans people in these situations are usually asked to use an existing unisex bathroom. In a school, that’s often a single-occupancy bathroom in the teacher’s lounge or the nurse’s office. And let’s be clear, this is usually a compromise. Trans employees and students aren’t asking to walk to the other end of the building, or in some cases take an elevator to a different floor than the one they work on, or go across the street or campus to a different building because they want to. Trans people are forced to because institutions can’t figure out another way to segregate us from people who might be uncomfortable sharing a restroom with us. Most trans people identify as one gender or another and tend to use the appropriate bathroom in say, a relatively anonymous public place like a movie theater or a restaurant. It’s only in contexts where coworkers, bosses, or other students know someone’s trans that this kind of problem comes up, along with the “unisex bathroom” compromise. Approximate cost to taxpayers: possibly the price of one or two extra keys to bathrooms that are normally locked. Approximate cost to trans student: segregation from everyone else’s bathrooms, and less convenience since there are only two she can use. OK, what’s up next? 2. “Bending over Backwards” Part 2: Schools are “bending over backwards” to accommodate kids like this, at the expense of other children! This seems to really bother Cavuto, but it’s almost impossible to figure out what he’s talking about. Besides the bathrooms, the only thing the school is proactively doing is making pamphlets and professional counselors available just in case a student, parent, or faculty member has questions or wants more information. The child and her family have their own counselor. So what else could Cavuto mean? My guess is that like far too many people, he finds the very presence of a trans person to be onerous and problematic. Why can’t the school district make this little girl just go away, force her to dress like a boy and not look or act like that? The “bending over backwards” he keeps harping actually refers to the fact that the school district is NOT acting to prevent this 8-year-old kid from attending and being herself. I suppose it would be less expensive to erase trans people somehow, huh? 3. What, but this kid is seven years old, how can this possibly be? Surely that’s too young to have a sexual preference! This one is incredibly common, but also pretty easy to deal with. Gender identity, a kid’s preferred role, whatever you want to call it, doesn’t necessarily have anything to do with sex. Adults are just confused because they associate the word “transgender” with gay pride parades with OMG buttsex and leather harnesses! Or, as the TYFA FAQ says: “A child's awareness of being a boy or a girl begins in the first year of life…and by age 4, gender identity is stable and they know that they will always be a boy or a girl.” Children ‘know' who they are, just as you did, from as early as age two. Some children don't have the words to ‘tell' you that they are gender variant; therefore, it is important to pay attention to cues and behaviors. I think there’s a lot of discussion that could be had about what exactly it means to be aware of your gender, especially at an early age. Is this essentializing, positing a biological basis for gender? I don’t think that’s necessarily the case, but that’s not even the issue at stake here. Children do express transgender desires and want to express themselves in cross-gendered ways from a very early age; whatever the reason for that, it doesn’t mean they’ve been sexually corrupted by exposure to the Evil Gay Agenda. 4. How can I explain this to my kids? This is too weird! Why can’t we just let kids be kids? Cavuto engages in a bunch of hand-wringing about his own sons, mirroring the father in the original news coverage whose daughter is going to be in the same class as this trans girl. Ironically, kids tend to be much more accepting and open-minded about trans issues than adults; it’s the parents who are biting their nails and projecting all the weirdness and sexual connotations onto the whole subject. Why shouldn’t every parent tell their kids that yes, there are some people who want to be a different gender than the category they were born into? There’s nothing necessarily prurient about that; there’s no need to get into the favorite lurid-tabloid obsession of the non-trans media, sex change operations. Again, it’s the parents who are preoccupied with that stuff, not the kids, not the trans kids. And most trans adults would rather people stop being so obsessed with the state of our genitals too, believe me. Some parents are simply skittish about having to explain to their children subjects that they’re uncomfortable with themselves. But that’s why the school is providing resources. After all, there are a lot of things parents have always had to explain to kids. Why are those dogs humping each other? Why does that man have dark skin, did he get dirty? Why does that lady ride around in a chair? The only way to avoid having to answer these questions is to utterly isolate your kids — or try to eradicate “different” people from their view. But in public schools, kids will always run into classmates who are different somehow, or have different needs. The Douglas County school system is smart enough to see that as a teaching opportunity, not a horrible problem that has to be wiped out. But wait, there’s more! Cavuto followed up the next day by running viewer e-mails, most of which are the “eww gross, trans people and bathrooms!” variety: All kinds of “common sense” victim-blaming included and broadcast on national television for your viewing pleasure: trans people are delusional; people who support trans people are delusional; trans people should provide their own bathrooms and not bother the rest of us. And of course, your genitals determine who you are and that’s it, I’ve got my fingers in my ears, nah nah nah nah I’m not listening to you! You can even hear the rest of the FOX News crew laughing in the background. When one e-mail draws an apt comparison to disabilities — apt because different kids have different needs and the school’s quite aware of that — Cavuto goes so far as to pretend he’s offended. “Are you saying that sexual preference is a disability? Now who’s being offensive? The kid has issues, not disabilities.” Way to miss the point by a mile. He wraps up by claiming that we should be tolerant of diversity… but not pay too much for it. Fascinating… so seeing as the bathrooms are practically free, he must be saying that resources about trans people shouldn’t be provided for other students and adults? Or maybe he’s just saying, as he did the day before, that a student who was male-assigned but lives her whole life as a girl shouldn’t be allowed to attend. Or maybe they should make her change into different clothes, put her hair in a cap, and use a different name than she does somewhere else. No wait, that wouldn’t be “tolerant” at all, would it? Funny how that works. For a night-and-day contrast, check out the interview that CNN ran with the executive director of TYFA, Kim Pearson: Of course, the conservative wingnuts didn’t like that one bit. “Americans for Truth about Homosexuality” promptly issued a screed that criticized CNN for not providing “another side” to the issue. Presumably that would be somebody from their organization or one like it, right? Who could come on and spout a bunch of factual inaccuracies and “won’t someone think of the children” statements, in the name of “fair and balanced.” AFTAH Troll-in-Chief Peter LaBarbera goes on to blame Pearson’s parenting for the fact that she has a transgender son: Could it be that permissive parenting plays a major role in encouraging a gender-confused identity in a child? Pearson says she felt “relief” on hearing that her daughter claimed to have a male identity. Relief? A wiser parent might have sought professional help from someone not beholden to “transgender” activist ideology — to guide the troubled girl into accepting the wonderful body and sex that God gave her. In the case of the eight-year-old boy, to what future are the politically correct adults — parents and school authorities included — consigning him with their “caring” embrace of deviance? Of course, the professional help that LaBarbera suggests is pretty much limited to discredited “ex-gay therapy” practicioners. Most other child psychologists these days understand that gender identity issues are not the same thing as other kinds of problems with body hatred and self-esteem — although they can certainly overlap, and make figuring out the right path very complicated, for young people and adults alike. And this says it all: In a saner era, it would be clear to all that the child — not society — has the problem. “Make it go away! The child with the problem!” LaBarbera would rather we go back to the very recent “saner era” when trans youth were given electroshock therapy and experimented on in sex clinics, institutionalized for long periods or forced to shave their heads, wear hyper-gendered clothing to “force” them back on the correct path, etc. At least that way nobody would have to look at them, right? Nobody would have to fear sharing a bathroom, coming into contact, exposing their own precious children. It would be a saner era. (If you want more bile on the same subject, Transadvocte has compiled a set of links to various disgusting blog responses.) This entry was posted on Sunday, February 17th, 2008 at 9:52 pm and is filed under Assholes, Crazy Conservatives, Disability Issues, Discrimination, Education, GLBTQ, Gender, Media, Parenthood, Television, Trans. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site. [lien] [EN]

It’s Only a Myth if You Believe That Those Sluts Were Asking For It

Because if women don’t call it rape then it’s just not. This op/ed is one of the most ridiculous I’ve read in a long, long time (and that’s pretty impressive). Heather MacDonald argues that high rates of sexual assault on campus don’t exist because women don’t always define their experiences as rape; she then goes on to say that women who say they were raped are lying sluts who exaggerate the truth and were probably asking for it. Compare: A 2006 survey of sorority women at the University of Virginia, for example, found that only 23% of the subjects whom the survey characterized as rape victims felt that they had been raped — a result that the university’s director of sexual and domestic violence services calls “discouraging.” Equally damning was a 2000 campus rape study conducted under the aegis of the Department of Justice. Sixty-five percent of those whom the researchers called “completed rape” victims and three-quarters of “attempted rape” victims said that they did not think that their experiences were “serious enough to report.” Believing in the campus rape epidemic, it turns out, requires ignoring women’s own interpretations of their experiences. With: So what reality does lie behind the rape hype? I believe that it’s the booze-fueled hookup culture of one-night, or sometimes just partial-night, stands. Students in the ’60s demanded that college administrators stop setting rules for fraternization. The colleges meekly complied and opened a Pandora’s box of boorish, promiscuous behavior that gets cruder each year. … In all these drunken couplings, there may be some deplorable instances of forced and truly non-consensual sex. But most campus “rape” cases exist in the gray area of seeming cooperation and tacit consent, which is why they are almost never prosecuted criminally. “Ninety-nine percent of all college rape cases would be thrown out of court in a twinkling,” observes University of Pennsylvania history professor Alan Kors. Many students hold on to the view that women usually have the power to determine whether a campus social event ends with intercourse. A female Rutgers student expressed a common sentiment in a university sexual-assault survey: “When we go out to parties and I see girls and the way they dress and the way they act … and just the way they are, under the influence and um, then they like accuse them of like, ‘Oh yeah, my boyfriend did this to me’ or whatever, I honestly always think it’s their fault.” So as long as women aren’t defining their experiences as rape — a conclusion she draws based on the fact that many women decided not to report the incidents — it isn’t rape. Unless the woman says it is rape, and then it definitely wasn’t rape, it was her fault for how she dressed and acted. At least MacDonald is consistent with her universal rule of “The slut asked for it, and she’s probably lying anyway.” What she isn’t so good on is logical reasoning — although she’s excellent at twisting statistics to suit her purposes. She argues that the campus rape crisis is a myth because the “one in four” statistic put forth by activists must be overblown. Why? Well: It is a central claim of these organizations that between a fifth and a quarter of all college women will be raped or will be the targets of attempted rape by the end of their college years. Harvard’s Office of Sexual Assault Prevention and Response uses the 20% to 25% statistic. Websites at New York University, Syracuse University, Penn State and the University of Virginia, among many other places, use the figures as well. And who will be the assailants of these women? Not terrifying strangers who will grab them in dark alleys, but the guys sitting next to them in class or at the cafeteria. If the one-in-four statistic is correct, campus rape represents a crime wave of unprecedented proportions. No felony, much less one as serious as rape, has a victimization rate remotely approaching 20% or 25%, even over many years. The 2006 violent crime rate in Detroit, one of the most violent cities in the U.S., was 2,400 murders, rapes, robberies, and aggravated assaults per 100,000 inhabitants — a rate of 2.4%. Such a crime wave — in which millions of young women would graduate having suffered the most terrifying assault, short of murder, that a woman can experience — would require nothing less than a state of emergency. Admissions policies, which if the numbers are true are allowing in tens of thousands of vicious criminals, would require a complete revision, perhaps banning male students entirely. The nation’s nearly 10 million female undergraduates would need to take the most stringent safety precautions. None of this crisis response occurs, of course — because the crisis doesn’t exist. So MacDonald is basically saying that the argument “this particular community is victimized at an astounding rate” can’t possibly be true because, when you compare the victimization stats for the particular community with the stats for the general population, the community in question appears to be victimized at an astounding rate (and more on that disputed one-in-four statistic here). As another example, this would be like someone saying, “In the mid-nineties, one in three black men between the ages of 20 and 29 were in prison,” and my responding, “Well, that’s impossible, because only 1 in 37 adults are incarcerated, and if the incarceration rate for black men were that high, we’d have a national crisis on our hands.” In other words, comparing the rates of victimization for a particular crime in a particular subset of the population to the victimization of the general population, and then using the huge disparity as evidence that specific victimization doesn’t exist, is ridiculous. The huge disparity is the whole point. Further, the one-in-four statistic is about sexual assault and attempted rape, reported and unreported. The crime stats that MacDonald examines are reported crimes; and it’s no big secret that a huge number of sexual assault survivors never report what happened to them. And why would they, when they know that a whole lot of people think like Heather MacDonald? Then she goes into a bizarre attack on sex-positive sexual health education: And even as the campus rape industry decries alleged male predation, a parallel campus sex bureaucracy sends the message that students should have recreational sex at every opportunity. New York University offers workshops on orgasms and “Sex Toys for Safer Sex” (”an evening with rubber, silicone and vibrating toys”) in residence halls and various student clubs. Brown University’s Student Services helps students answer the compelling question: “How can I bring sex toys into my relationship?” Princeton University’s “Safer Sex Jeopardy” game for freshmen lists six types of vibrators and eight kinds of penile toys. I will admit that I was one of those slutty, slutty co-eds who actually gave “Sex Toys for Safer Sex” workshops, and facilitated other sexual health events that would certainly send MacDonald into a tizzy. Yes, we brought a whole bag of sex toys into residence halls, and we talked about them. We talked about masturbation. We talked about sex. Mostly, we talked about safer sex practices, and how using sex toys could make sex fun and interesting, and could significantly decrease your risk of STI infection. That’s the whole “safer sex” part of the workshop name. The idea behind that workshop, and others, is that talking about sex demystifies it; if you have the sexual self-confidence to suggest using a vibrator with your partner (or, hell, to walk into a sex shop and just buy a vibrator for yourself), you’re going to feel more empowered to negotiate condom use, to go on birth control, to say no when you mean no, and to say yes when you mean yes. And if we can send the message that safer sex can be better sex; that it’s sexy to plan and take the necessary steps to keep yourself healthy; that safer sex isn’t a drag or an inconvenience, but something that can be worked in as pleasurable; and that the best sex is enjoyable and good for you, all the better. But at heart, that’s the problem for MacDonald and other apologists for rape culture: If women have the ability to fully and freely say “yes,” and if we established a model of enthusiastic consent instead of just “no means no,” it would be a lot harder for men to get away with rape. It would be a lot harder to argue that there’s “gray area.” It would be a lot harder to push the idea that “date rape” is less serious than “real” rape, that women who are assaulted by acquaintances were probably teases, that what is now called “date rape” used to just be called “seduction.” At first glance, it seems strange that MacDonald would simultaneously attack what she thinks is a hyped campus rape crisis and sex education on campuses. But it’s quite deliberate, and very telling. Anti-rape activism and sex-positive sexual health education are two sides to the same coin: They both challenge the dominant narrative that women’s bodies aren’t our own; they insist that sex is about consent and enjoyment, not violence and harm; and they attack a power structure that sees women as victims and men as predators. Anti-rape activists and sex-positive educators insist that men are not animals. Instead, men are rational human beings fully capable of listening to their partners and understanding that sex isn’t about pushing someone to do something they don’t want to; plenty of men are able to grasp the idea that sex should be entered into joyfully and enthusiastically by both partners, and that an absence of “no” isn’t enough — “yes” should be the baseline requirement. And women are not empty vessels to be fucked or not-fucked; we’re sexual actors who should absolutely have the ability to say “yes” when we want it, just like men, and should feel safe saying “no” — even if we’ve been drinking, even if we’ve slept with you before, even if we’re wearing tight jeans, even if we’re naked in bed with you. Finally, men need to feel empowered to say “no” also. As much as it’s assumed that women always have to be the brakes, it’s also assumed that men never refuse sex; and when women don’t know how to say “yes” and men don’t know how to say “no,” you’ve got an ugly scenario on your hands. That’s what anti-rape activists, feminists, and sex-positive educators seek to fix. It’s conservatives like MacDonald who pine for a time when women kept their legs shut until men forced them open — and were then humiliated and scorned if they dared stand up for themselves. The psychology of female rape apologists isn’t that hard to figure out. If you can tell yourself that rape survivors asked for it — that they dressed a certain way, flirted too much, drank too much, just changed their minds, or flat-out made it up — you feel safe. You don’t do those things, and so you aren’t at risk. I’m sympathetic to the need for psychological self-protection. But not when it’s to the detriment of other women. MacDonald works for the conservative Manhattan Institute, and her view isn’t simply a personal one: It’s the standard right-wing misogynist line. And it’s part of a much broader assault on women’s rights and basic bodily autonomy. [lien] [EN]

Kobe Myths – Playoff Edition

Last October I posted Kobe Myths, a column that compared the regular season performances of Kobe Bryant, Paul Pierce, and Michael Jordan.  This column presented evidence - and this should not be a surprise - that Kobe is nowhere near as productive as MJ.  In addition - and this might be a surprise - Kobe and Paul Pierce are fairly similar in terms of overall productivity (with Pierce having the slight edge). As I noted on Sunday, it is time to update this story with an examination of the NBA playoffs.  Specifically, is Kobe “like Mike” in the NBA’s second season? Before we get to that question, let me repeat one of my favorite stories from The Wages of Wins.  Erick Eschker and I wrote a short article for the Journal of Economic Issues (published in 2005).  This article specifically examined whether or not players could systematically play better in the playoffs.  As we detail in Chapter Eight of The Wages of Wins, Eschker and I were unable to find players who “stepped it up” in the post-season.  In fact, on average NBA players see their Win Score per 48 minutes [WS48 - not to be confused with WP48] decline by 1.26.  Now 1.26 is the average decline.  What if we look specifically at Kobe, Pierce, and MJ? That examination is posted in Tables One and Two. Tables One and Two: Comparing Kobe, Pierce, and MJ in the Playoffs Table One compares the average performance of each player -across a host of statistics - in both the regular season and playoffs.  When we look at Kobe, we see that except for turnovers and blocked shots, Kobe declines in every statistical category in the playoffs.  And his overall WS48 decline surpasses the 1.26 drop-off we generally see in NBA players.  In sum, Kobe is not a prime-time player.  In the post-season, he tends to decline quite a bit.   What about Pierce?  Pierce actually hits the boards better in the playoffs, which somewhat offsets his decline in shooting efficiency.  “Somewhat offsets” is the key phrase.  Overall, we still see a decline in WS48, it’s just not as big a drop-off as we tend to see. The last player reported in Table One is Jordan.  When we look at Jordan’s post-season performances we see how silly it is to compare Kobe (or Pierce) to MJ.  Jordan was truly an amazing player in the playoffs.  Of course, what is even more amazing is what MJ did in the regular season.  Yes, as detailed in The Wages of Wins, even MJ tended to get worse in the playoffs (although he still offered much more than Kobe or Pierce). In Table Two (beneath Table One above), we see each player’s performance from year-to-year.   Kobe has now been to the playoffs eleven times.  Nine of these trips saw his productivity - in terms of WS48 - decline.  Like Kobe, Pierce and MJ also were only better in the post-season twice. Pierce, though, has only been to the playoffs five times.  So his batting average -relative to Kobe and MJ - is quite good.  Interestingly, Pierce’s playoff performance this year - when he was named Finals MVP — was substantially worse than his corresponding regular season productivity. Okay, what do all these numbers tell us? · Kobe is not “like Mike”. We can clearly see this when we look at what each player did in the regular season and playoffs. · Kobe and Pierce offer similar levels of productivity in the regular season. · In the playoffs, Pierce has been much better than Kobe in his career. · Although Pierce offers more than Kobe in the playoffs, Pierce — like Kobe — is still not “like Mike”. One should note that one reason Pierce offers more is that he has spent more time at small forward.  Again, small forwards tend to do more rebounding than shooting guards, so it’s not surprising to see small forwards post higher Win Scores.  Even when we adjust for position played, though, Pierce still comes out ahead of Kobe. Let me close by noting that this doesn’t make Pierce the “best” player in the game today (a label often given to Kobe).  In fact, Pierce is not even the best player on his own team.  As mentioned many times, Kevin Garnett has been the best player in the NBA for a number of years.  And although Chris Paul surpassed KG in 2007-08, Garnett still offers much more than either “The Truth” or Kobe. - DJ The WoW Journal Comments Policy Our research on the NBA was summarized HERE. The Technical Notes at wagesofwins.com provides substantially more information on the published research behind Wins Produced and Win Score Wins Produced, Win Score, and PAWSmin are also discussed in the following posts: Simple Models of Player Performance Wins Produced vs. Win Score What Wins Produced Says and What It Does Not Say Introducing PAWSmin — and a Defense of Box Score Statistics Finally, A Guide to Evaluating Models contains useful hints on how to interpret and evaluate statistical models. Possibly related posts: (automatically generated) · Kobe for MVP? · Kobe and T-Mac Again · Kobe to win first MVP? · crappy defense [lien] [EN]

Dividend Investment Myths

Dividend Inc. submits: There is a commonly told myth that says that companies that pay a dividend misallocate funds that could be used to generate new revenue or grow the company. According to this myth the lack of growth in the company will keep the stock's price low over the short and long term. This is the most fascinating misconception that exists about dividend paying companies. The theory seemingly makes sense, yet after critical examination, the truth comes out. The following is the performance of Dividend Achievers in the last year from August 8, 2007 until August 8, 2008. These stocks either hit a new low within the year and moved higher from there, or they have started the year at a low and continued upward. Keep in mind that the percentage change of these stocks does not include the annual dividend that would have been received over the same period of time and just looks at stock appreciation.Complete Story » [lien] [EN]

The Surprising Truth About Bankruptcy

We knew we needed to declare bankruptcy two years before we officially did it. We were struggling financially, and we barely had enough money to cover the bills and the gas at the end of the day - which didn’t count the nearly $30,000 in debt and medical bills that we owed. But still, we struggled. We had been raise to pay our debts, plain and simple. My husband and I took odd jobs in the evening to earn as much extra as we could, and he started back to school through a plan at his work where they paid for it. I think what finally did it for us wasn’t the vicious collection calls (which followed us everywhere) or the constant stream of overdue bills in the mailbox. It was the realization that at our current rate, it would take us nearly 15 years to pay down our debts in full. The last straw was when one of the medical companies put another garnishment on my husband’s check. The money that they would be taking out meant that we couldn’t afford our rent, or food for the next 6 weeks. So, we gathered all of our bills and paperwork together, and went to see a lawyer. The lawyer we used was human enough to take payment arrangements (It cost us just over $1000 to declare bankruptcy). I think he allowed us to make an arrangement with him as much because we were organized, as anything else. We only had $200 to offer him when we first walked into his office. But, he did take our case, and he did stop the garnishment. Within two months we had received our bankruptcy discharge papers. The collection calls mostly stopped, (We still had to give some of them our bankruptcy information) the bills stopped coming, and we slept easier at night. Now, several years later, I know that there were good and bad things about choosing to declare bankruptcy. For one thing, our credit is ruined. However, it was ruined before, and it would have been close to 15 years before we could have met our obligations and fixed our credit anyway. Truthfully, bankruptcy put us on the fast track to recovery. What little we had, we were able to save instead of giving to a bill collector. We were able to go out and get secured credit cards immediately, which are helping to raise our credit score. After the bankruptcy was finalized, we began challenging accounts on our credit reports, and this also helped to raise our score. I think there is a huge myth that declaring bankruptcy will ruin your life forever. It would be more appropriate to say that it will not ruin your life at all, just your credit, and only for about 4-5 years. I do personally have some guilt that will probably always stay with me. I feel like we cheated. We shortchanged companies that we did owe money to, and did not pay them. We imploded financially. Because we did not carry any insurance, and because we were afraid to ask for help. We waited until things were so bad, that there really was no other way out. It was a lot like what I imagine living in hell to be, and I know that there are others out there that have it far worse than I did, believe me. But for me it was a worst case scenario and not only I did live through it but I am better off for the experience. The truth is, we started getting car loan offers before our bankruptcy was even discharged. Less than a year after bankruptcy I could get an unsecured credit card. Five years our of bankruptcy I expect that our credit will have rebounded enough for us to buy a house. The bankruptcy will remain on our credit report for the next ten years, but the effects of it so far are negligible. The truth is, my bankruptcy hurt my credit far less than all of the revolving medical accounts did. When one company sold the debt to another, it opened up a new revolving account on my credit report. I had as many as forty revolving medical accounts listed as open on my credit report when we declared bankruptcy. You know, the real truth is, our bankruptcy didn’t hurt us - it set us free. Free from a life of garnishments, collection calls to my job, friends and relatives, free from the prospect of overwhelming debt for the rest of my life. I would do it again tomorrow if I had to, and happily live with the guilt. Our bankruptcy gave me and my family the chance to have a normal life again. We took that chance, and today we are far batter off than many of the people we know and work with every day. Because we have been very careful not to go into debt since our bankruptcy, our money is our own. Do understand that bankruptcy is not for everyone. It takes a long serious look at your finances to decided whether or not it would be the best course of action. I can simply say that for us it was, and I will always be glad that we did it. No matter what the damage to our credit score was, the benefits of being debt free in one fell swoop (instead of 15 years!) were well worth it to me. Have a question about bankruptcy? Leave a comment below! Keep Reading: · Can One Bad Account Ruin Your Credit Score? · How to Dispute An Item On Your Credit Report · Make A Statement (On Your Credit Report) [lien] [EN]

The Truth About Recycling

Some of the things you’ve always heard about recycling may have been true at one time, but times change. Other things may be partially true, but you’ll get the whole explanation at Popular Mechanics, in the post Recycling Myths: PM Debunks 5 Half Truths about Recycling. Altogether, recycling is becoming easier and more cost-effective every [...] [lien] [EN]

Myths Unravel

Myths Unravel Another day, another media-generated Obama myth destroyed. This time it turns out that those hordes of small donors everybody knows contributed Obamoney to Obama in such huge numbers were actually not really there at all - at least not in the numbers that were touted. That is not to say that Obama’s fundraising was not impressive - obviously, it was. But the money from large contributers dwarfed the amount from small, individual donors. In fact, 80% of Obama’s money came from large donors, many of them multiple repeater donors. The reported numbers show that Obama actually received 80% more money from large donors (those giving $1,000 or more total) than from small donors. Through the Democratic National Convention, the Institute estimates, Obama received $119 million from genuine small donors, an impressive sum, to be sure. But not as impressive as the $210 million he’d raised by then from bundlers and large donors. “After a more thorough analysis of data from the Federal Election Commission (FEC),” the CFI study says, “it has become clear that repeaters and large donors were even more important for Obama than we or other analysts had fully appreciated.” Expect the media to widely ignore this study by the nonpartisan Campaign Finance Institute. It doesn’t fit the narrative they want told. But truth will out. Just another item showing how far into the tank the media was for Obama. And a hint of how much damage that will do to them when people realize they were sold a bill of goods by the MSM. Via Memeorandum [lien] [EN]

LiveScience.com Writes Up A Report That Should Be Headlined: ‘Majority Not Buying Obama Health Plan Myths’

[NoObamaCare9]Using a “clever” headline, LiveScience.com, in a report carried at Yahoo News, tries to give those who will only see the headline the impression that Americans are a bunch of dummies who don’t understand what’s good for them: Majority of Americans Believe Health Care Reform ‘Myths’ Yes, the word “myths” is in quotes, but the reader is left to assume that a credible outfit must be asserting what those “myths” are. But it’s actually that less than credible outfit known as “the Obama White House,” which claims that those who don’t swallow their assertions are subscribing to “myths.” The reality is that President Barack Obama and his apparatchiks continue to peddle a set of long-disproved assertions about the kind of health care plan he and the Democratic Congress intend to make law. The good news is that the American people aren’t buying most of what Obama et al are selling: More than 0 percent of Americans believe a public insurance option will increase health care costs, according to a new survey on assertions the White House has called myths. The national survey, conducted from Aug4 – , involved a random sample of 0 Americans aged 8 and older living in the 8 contiguous states and Washington, D.C. Respondents indicated whether or not they believed 9 claims about health care reform, each of which is considered a myth by the White House. …. “It’s perhaps not surprising that more Republicans believe these things than Democrats,” said study scientist Dr. Aaron Carroll, director of Indiana University’s Center for Health Policy and Professionalism Research. “What is surprising is just how many Republicans – and Independents – believe them. If the White House hopes to convince the majority of Americans that they are misinformed about health care reform, there is much work to be done.” Mr. Carroll seems to inherently assume that “the majority of Americans that …. are misinformed.” Here are some of the findings noted by LiveScience, compared to their disposition in the real world7 percent of respondents believe that wait times for health care services, such as surgery, will increase (1 percent of Republicans7 percent of Democrats2 percent of Independents). Response: Virtually every other state-run health care system has seen waiting times increase when nationalization occurs. More recently, waiting times have increased in Massachusetts after the implementation of state-controlled Commonwealth Care, aka RomneyCare. About five out of 0 believe the federal government will become directly involved in making personal health care decisions (0 percent of Republicans5 percent of Democrats6 percent of Independents). Response: This has of course happened already in other countries, but is also a stated objective of the likes of Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel, who believes that doctors too often focus on patient well-being while ignoring how doing so affects others in society. Roughly six out of 0 Americans believe taxpayers will be required to pay for abortions (8 percent of Republicans0 percent of Democrats8 percent of Independents). Response: Even the Associated Press has conceded that abortion is in there6 percent believe reforms will result in health care coverage for all illegal immigrants (6 percent of Republicans9 percent of Democrats3 percent of Independents). Response: The current dubious estimate of roughly 7 million uninsured Americans includes 4 million illegals. Though the Congressional Budget Office says that though ObamaCare will fall well short of its stated intention, that stated intention is to indeed cover all who are uninsured, legal and illegal.  Beyond that, there’s little doubt that illegals would be covered through court action if anyone tried to resist covering them after ObamaCare’s passage4 percent believe the public option will increase premiums for Americans with private health insurance (8 percent of Republicans8 percent of Democrats8 percent of Independents). Response: This has to happen, because the relatively rich benefits package the government would impose on any plans allowed to continue to exist exceeds the coverage many individuals and companies currently carry. Five out of 0 think cuts will be made to Medicare in order to cover more Americans (6 percent of Republicans7 percent of Democrats4 percent of Independents). Response: The Obama administration has already stated that it will cut Medicare spending but that it will somehow not cut benefits. Even putting aside how virtually impossible that is, a so-called CNN Truth Squad Fact Check tripped up on itself by admitting that the “subsidized” Medicare Advantage program would be cut. As said in the title of this post, a headline written to inform instead of to deceive those who don’t read the full article would have written up roughly as, “Majority Not Buying Obama Health Plan Myths.” Cross-posted at NewsBusters.org. [lien] [EN]

Disney/ABC Twisting Truth About WGA

That the studios and networks have been twisting the truth about the WGA strike to suit their own purposes looks to be standard operating procedure during this strike. That happens on the other side of this labor dispute, too. But no company seems to be doing this more than Disney/ABC. For instance, all comments (not just some) that are even mildly friendly to the WGA are quickly deleted from ABC.com. Here is one striking writer's experience on Tuesday: "I was on ABC.com today when I saw the Leno story and that there were comments where writers were being bashed and scabs promoted. I defended writers and less than two minutes later the comments were deleted. I tried again and, once again, my comments were deleted. Talk about ABC/Disney censorship." The above wouldn't seem as scary if Disney didn't own an international news operation, ABC, which is supposed to report accurately and consider both sides of an issue.  But it gets worse. ABC recently held a "Strike Educational Seminar". Its purpose was described thusly: "With each day of the WGA strike, more articles and opinions circulate in the media. Now is your chance to hear the real issues in question. Please join Mark Pedowitz and Marc Sandman for a brief discussion of the strike and its challenges." According to an account of the seminar from a Disney/ABC employee who wishes to remain nameless but whose identity I have confirmed, very little about this presentation was truthful. [But, first, a personal note: I'm told during the seminar I was called "Tokyo Rose" -- a reference to the English-speaking female broadcasters used by Japan to disseminate anti-American propaganda during World War II. This is not merely a garden variety insult. This is an odious comparison with all its implications to use against anyone, much less a journalist.]  Here is the account given me of the ABC strike seminar: "I went for selfish reasons, hoping to get the answer to the question, Will I lose my job? But I also wanted to hear what these folks had to say, and I was shocked. Sandman, a labor lawyer here, did not refrain from editorializing every chance he got. Rather than discuss what this meant for the studio in a pragmatic sense (2008 pilots, jobs, bonuses, etc.), he totally BASHED the WGA at every turn. These were some of the salient points this little blowhard spread to no less than 150 employees: "1. The Guild wanted to strike way back in July. The AMPTP was ready to bargain then, but the WGA refused. "2. They never spend more than 3 hours at the table, and this is the Guild's fault. Basically, says he, Verrone and Young are novices who've never done this before and as such read from a script at the table, then leave. When talks broke off the last time it was because the WGA handed the AMPTP their proposals, then left. According to him, the AMPTP was ready to work things out. "3. The main issues for the WGA, which the AMPTP considers unacceptable are: 1) sympathy strikes; 2) reality and animation; and 3) the issue of distribution, which says that the WGA is insisting on a provision whereby no network or studio can acquire a product unless the writer(s) of that product are complying with WGA rules. This is what he had the audacity to say. He also said that in terms of streaming and downloads, the AMPTP has a proposal that is absolutely workable. "4. The DGA is a much more responsible, reasonable union. The DGA had one tiny strike in the last 40 years, while the WGA strikes every chance it gets. "5. The main reason the WGA is striking is political. The main reason the Guild wants to unionize reality and animation is to create more revenue stream through dues. (!!!!!!) It has nothing to do with caring about writers. And, he said, because Patric Verrone used to write for animation, he has a particular beef with that. "6. He referred to the strikes as a "traveling circus". "The thing that killed me is that people in the audience were buying it. During the Q&A, questions such as "What can we do to to help the studio's cause?" were asked. I almost lost it, and my cheeks were so red I felt like I suddenly had a 104 fever. The way this information was presented -- in addition to being complete bullshit -- was absolutely unacceptable and irresponsible. This asshole was given a theater to act out his own personal vendetta against the WGA to an audience that doesn't know any better. It was awful. "Feel free to spread this far and wide, to Writeraction and Nikke Finke (who he referred to as "Tokyo Rose")."  [lien] [EN]

Medical Myths Even Doctors Believe

I know, this sounds like the latest infomercial on late night television to get you to by some book that "doctors don't want you to have." Unfortunately, marketing tactics like this work. They sell books and my patients bring them in to ask me about them. (At least my patients come in and ask me about them, so that we can talk about it). The title of this post is "borrowed" from an article from yesterday's New York Times. Researchers from the Indiana University School of Medicine made a list of items thought to be in the "conventional wisdom" of physicians and of the general public. What they came up with is a list of seven items proven NOT to be scientifically sound -- according to their research. This is an interesting list... 1. People should drink at least eight glasses of water a day. 2. We use only 10 percent of our brains. 3. Hair and fingernails continue to grow after death. 4. Shaving hair causes it to grow back faster, darker or coarser. 5. Reading in dim light ruins your eyesight. 6. Eating turkey makes people especially drowsy. 7. Cellphones create considerable electromagnetic interference in hospitals. Definitely check out the article for more details. I admit that a couple from that list surprised me (I won't tell you which ones - HA!). Not only is the article interesting, but also are the 142 comments (as of this posting) that follow the article. Some people added to this list. Others who identify themselves as "physicians" say that they knew all of these were myths and that the title is misleading. Still others are taking this opportunity to attack traditional western medical care to promote their own "non-traditional" or "alternative" methods of wellness. For me, it's a fun article. I'm not taking this article too seriously. Did I learn something - yes. Did it rock my world - not really. This shows again that a lot of angry people live in the comments section. Kind of sad, if you think about it. Take it easy people! [lien] [EN]

Jaybill McCarthy Dispells 10 PHP Myths

Jaybill McCarthy has written an excellent blog post to open the year with, “10 PHP Myths Dispelled”. In it he spends a paragraph on each of 10 myths about PHP and show why they are just not true. [lien] [EN]

"Five Myths about How Americans Vote"

Bryan Caplan reiterates some of the arguments from his book about the rationality of voting behavior: 5 Myths About How Americans Vote, by Bryan Caplan, Commentary, Washington Post: We're barely into the primary season, but millions of Americans are already sick of hearing about the 2008 race. Bad as the torrent of news is, I find the repetition of myths about voters and voting even more galling. Whether you're arguing with friends or watching the news, you hear many claims about how American democracy works that just aren't true. 1. People vote their self-interest. In fact, there is only the tiniest correlation between income and party. The country is not divided into two camps: the poor, who vote Democratic, and the rich, who vote Republican. If you consider your own experiences, this is hardly surprising: Are your rich friends really Republicans and your poor friends Democrats? Self-interest is also a bad predictor of views about specific issues. Yes, the elderly heavily support Social Security and Medicare, but so does almost everyone else. ... And so on. Pollsters have found a few exceptions where self-interest really matters, such as smoking restrictions... But overall, where voters stand has little to do with where they sit. [...continue...] [lien] [EN]

Can Eric Boehlert Tell the Truth?

Catching up on blog reading, I see a post by Tom Maguire that raises the question: can Media Matters’ Eric Boehlert tell the truth? Tom quotes Boehlert as saying: But the servicemen who were on the boat that night don’t remember seeing Schachte. Since the boat was a small skimmer, it would have been hard for him to escape notice. Besides Kerry, the other crewmembers that night were Bill Zaladonis and Patrick Runyon. They had told the same story for years, and they both insisted neither Schachte nor anyone else was with the three of them that night. Tom responds: Zaladonis and Runyon had “told the same story for years“? To whom, other than perhaps each other (as Zaladonis claimed in his Lisa Meyers interview)? Douglas Brinkley interviewed Zaladonis “repeatedly” for his 2004 Kerry hagiography “Tour of Duty”, yet there is no mention whatsoever that Zaladonis was with Kerry during Kerry’s first combat when Kerry earned his first medal; nor does Runyon get a mention in the book (if the index is reliable). And Michael Kranish of the Boston Globe (or a non-bylined Globe staffer) interviewed Zaladonis for the Globe’s 2003 “Candidate In The Making” series yet apparently never elicited from Zaladonis that he was with Kerry on that dramatic evening Zaladonis later described as “one of the scariest nights” of his life. And again, Runyon is a no-show. Tom ends by saying he can’t wait to see Boehlert’s evidence. He’s very good at the tongue-in-cheek thing. [lien] [EN]

Swift Kids for Truth open fire on Democratic hopefuls

Remember, not all that long ago when Democrats and proponents of the S-Chip extension used a real family as an example of how health insurance issues can ruin a family. Remember the right-wing wackos going nuts, trolling their house and talking about how it was "open season" on a young boy because he had entered the political fray. Well, in the end, they realized something - it was a good idea. Thus, they decided that children could be their ultimate key to 2008. So they've presented the Swift Kids for Truth: We are mad. We have angry feelings. We are not going to let these people destroy us. We must be strong in the face of dirty politicians. Lies are not going to save the cherry tree. It has already been cut down. It is now time to plant a new tree. The tree of freedom. And we, the SwiftKids, will stand to protect that tree. We'll nourish it with truth and protection. Take a look at some of the ads they've produced: On Hillary Clinton: "Does making cookies for me make my mom a bad person? Hillary Clinton thinks so." On Barack Obama: "His name is very difficult to say." It's truly appalling. For more on the Swift Kids for Truth and their relentless work to take down the Democratic Party, check 23/6 Video News. --WKW Crossposted at WilliamKwolfrum.com [lien] [EN]