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India witnesses spurt in Gold smuggling

“Customs officials foiled the attempt by a passenger hailing from Koyilandy to smuggle 3.99 kg of gold concealed in his baggage. The gold, in the form of gold bars, was hidden in a metal box in the rear side of a TV. The gold bars were detected during the X-ray scan. Assistant commissioner Rohit Kumar led the search and seizure operation. Meanwhile, some of the airports have upgraded the scanners and x-ray machines to detect gold smuggling which has risen following the increase in import duty to 8% and differential in gold prices in India and abroad, market analysts said.” Continue reading →

Television set injuries on the rise in the U.S.

“Television sets injure one child every 30 minutes in America, and the rate of emergency room visits is increasing with the popularity of flat-screen TVs, according to a new study. Just over half (52 percent) of all TV injuries for those under 18 from 1990 to 2011 were due to the equipment falling and hitting the patient, said the study in the journal Pediatrics. The number of falling TV injuries was 5,455 in 1990, but that more than doubled to 12,300 in 2011, the study said. The number of US households with multiple TVs has more than doubled since 1990. Previous research has found that 215 children died from a falling TV injury from 2000 to 2011.” Continue reading →

Britain considers banning Internet pornography over ‘corroding’ influence on children

“Every household in Britain connected to the internet will be obliged to declare whether they want to maintain access to online pornography, David Cameron will announce on Monday. In the most dramatic step by the government to crack down on the ‘corroding’ influence of pornography on childhood, the prime minister will say that all internet users will be contacted by their service providers and given an ‘unavoidable choice’ on whether to use filters. The changes will be introduced by the end of next year. All police forces will work with a single secure database of illegal images of children to help ‘close the net on paedophiles’.” Continue reading →

California Democratic Party tells Obama to halt medical marijuana raids

“The California Democratic Party approved a resolution over the weekend that called on President Barack Obama to halt federal raids on marijuana dispensaries. The resolution, sponsored by the Brownie Marie Democratic Club of Riverside County, noted that 18 states and the District of Columbia had legalized the use of marijuana for medical purposes, while Colorado and Washington state had legalized the use of marijuana for recreational purposes. Citing the disproportionate number of ethnic minorities jailed over marijuana, the resolution urged Obama to order the federal government to abide by state laws regarding the drug.” Continue reading →

Daniel Hannan on Statism and Detroit: My Analysis

“In December 1991, one block from my home, a man twice my size tried to stuff me into the back of a Chrysler New Yorker that was occupied by three other co-crazies blanked out on dope. My husband and I packed our bags and left the city the following spring. After ten years, we were done with The Experiment. The Marxism, crime, anti-white racism, tax rates, and lack of stable neighborhoods chased us out of town. In reality, the city died in 1967, with the riot that changed the city for decades. The decomposition occurred immediately thereafter. My father, a firefighter, worked a 72+ hour shift during the riots, putting out fires while being shot at by rioting civilians.” Continue reading →

FEMA caught using old flood map data that cost homeowners untold extra insurance premiums

“From Maine to Oregon, local floodplain managers say FEMA’s recent flood maps – which dictate the premiums that 5.5 million Americans pay for flood insurance – have often been built using outdated, inaccurate data. Homeowners, in turn, have to bear the cost of fixing FEMA’s mistakes. It’s unclear exactly how many new maps FEMA has issued in recent years are at least partly based on older data. While FEMA’s website allows anybody to look-up flood maps for their areas, the agency’s maps don’t show the age of the underlying data. Congress has actually cut map funding by more than half since 2010, from $221 million down to $100 million this year.” Continue reading →

Solving the Detroit Crisis

“Conservatives will, of course, be proven correct that Detroit will be only the first major city to seek a bail-out, but their objections will be fruitless. In fact, it is not only possible, but likely, that, once the concept of ‘No City Left Behind’ transforms public perception of a Detroit from municipal redundancy to humanitarian necessity, the door may be further opened, not only to other major cities, but to entire states. As Rahm Emanuel famously stated, ‘Never let a good crisis go to waste.’ Detroit may be used by the Federal government to establish the necessity to nationalise any crisis.” Continue reading →

Detroit’s City Pensioners Finally Figure It Out After 40 Years: No Pensions.

“Fiscal conservatives have said for years that this was inevitable. We were dismissed as crackpots. The red ink could flow forever, we were told. ‘No problem!’ They say the same thing today about the federal government. The suckers line up for jobs with the federal government, with its fat pensions and unfunded liabilities. The result will be the same: default. Cities can do what individuals do: run up large bills, and then declare bankruptcy. The voters will shrug off 20,000 pensioners who lived in a fantasy world all their lives. They are no longer politically viable. They are merely a tiny voting bloc that has no money to give to campaigns.” Continue reading →