Magic Statistics

The UN created the Human Rights Council earlier this year to replace the old discredited Human Rights Commission, but it’s hard to see any improvement.  The Council has now decided to dissuade all UN human rights bodies from naming particular countries as violators of human rights.  Can you say “cover-up”?

A UN General Assembly committee has voted to discourage UN human rights bodies from condemning any country on human rights, despite objections to the measure from the U.S. and many European countries.

The draft resolution — sponsored by Belarus and Uzbekistan, both of which have been accused of serious human rights abuses — was approved by the assembly's human rights committee on a 77-63 vote, with 26 abstentions. It now goes to the full 192-member General Assembly for a final vote.

Belarus and Uzbekistan, the resolution’s co-sponsors, have the worst records of repression and tyranny of all former Soviet bloc countries.  If the UN were sane (a big “if”, I know), they would not be assigned seats on a body charged with monitoring human rights.

Its key provision stresses the need to avoid “country-specific resolutions on the situation of human rights” and the “exploitation of human rights for political purposes.”

In a spirit of good faith, no doubt, the Council has made consistently made one exception to the no-names policy.  Take a wild guess which country that might be.

The new Human Rights Council in Geneva, which earlier this year replaced the discredited Human Rights Commission, has met three times to pass resolutions condemning Israel but hasn't dealt with human rights in Myanmar, North Korea or Sudan, Mr. [US Ambassador John] Bolton said.

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It’s nearly enough to make one feel sorry for Al Gore: Unseasonably cold weather seems to follow the guy around.  It’s almost eerie.

In January 2004, Al Gore visited Boston and New York to deliver a global-warming panic speech, and bitter cold weather came with him.  Boston experienced its lowest temperatures in almost fifty years, while in New York it was -40 with wind chill.  (At -40, it doesn’t matter whether you’re measuring in Celsius or Fahrenheit.)

Mr Gore just travelled to New Zealand touting his film An Inconvenient Truth, and it was déjà vu all over again.

Call it the Gore Effect — the uncanny ability of the world's most famous global warming alarmist to cool any place he tours.  You see, this has happened to the former US vice-president and narrator of An Inconvenient Truth rather a lot.
. . .
[L]ook over at New Zealand, which has just finished hosting another Gore tour.

It's bad enough that the place was just emerging from one of its wettest and coldest winters on record.

Now the local papers report: "An unusually cold October has left Southland dairy farmers struggling."

Two days ago, the High Muckamuck of global warming moved on to Australia.  Yesterday it snowed in Queensland in November for the first time in at least 65 years.

Snow has fallen in southern Queensland.

Granite Belt residents say snow flakes and sleet fell for between 10 and 15 minutes at about 10:30am along the border between Queensland and New South Wales.

Mobile Mechanic Paul Verri has lived in the Stanthorpe area for 28 years and says he has never seen snow this late in the year.
. . .
The Bureau of Meteorology says the last time snow or sleet was reported this late in the year was in early October 1941.

The latest weather report for the region isn’t much better.  (All temperatures in Celsius.)

It was a freezing cold night across eastern and southern Australia as minimum temperatures dropped up to 14 degrees below average on Friday morning. Bundles of November minimum records were broken, mainly in southeast QLD and northeast NSW. The cold morning was due to clear skies, light winds and low humidity across the region. The temperature dropped to 10.8 degrees in Brisbane, their coldest November morning since 1905. Amberley shattered a 66 year November record as they experienced a low of 5 degrees, 2 degrees colder than the previous record. Charleville, 6 degrees broke a 65 year November minimum record while 50 year records were broken at Taroom, Yamba, Smoky Cape and Parkes.

If you’re looking a warm vacation spot, avoid anywhere on Al Gore’s itinerary.

h/t: Greenie Watch

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A constitutional expert claims that the proposal by Justice Minister Vic Toews (photo at right) to change the composition of judicial appointments advisory committees could be struck down by—who else?—judges.

The changes, announced last week by Justice Minister Vic Toews to the great consternation of the legal community, appear to violate an "unwritten principle" of judicial independence which has been invoked in the past by the Supreme Court of Canada, said University of Ottawa law professor Errol Mendes.

"One could argue quite convincingly that the unwritten principle requires an arm's-length appointment system to preserve the independence of the judiciary," said Prof. Mendes, who recently completed a two-year stint as a senior adviser in the federal Privy Council Office.

Mr. Toews intends to increase the membership of each committee from seven to eight by adding a police representative, who would be appointed by the federal government. He also intends to make the sole judicial representative on each committee a non-voting chair.

Detractors claim that by giving the federal appointees a majority on the reconfigured committees, Mr. Toews's plan could allow the government to block any judicial candidate it does not favour, opening the door to the government packing courts with political cronies or candidates who share its ideology.

I agree that judicial independence is an important principle, but the question is whether the proposed changes violate it.  After all, we’re only talking about advisory committees; they don’t actually make judicial appointments.

Canadian Supreme Court justices are appointed at the sole discretion of the Prime Minister and Cabinet, and no Supreme Count justice or other Canadian judge has ever brought a legal action to overturn that procedure as a purported violation of judicial independence.

Supreme Court judges have to endure a process of direct appointment by the Executive Branch.  How dependent can you get!

Anyway, as I said, those suddenly controversial committees are only advisory; the actual appointments are made at the discretion of the federal Minister of Justice—that would be the reviled despicable loathsome ignorant misguided Vic Toews.

Unfortunately for the Canadian judiciary, there’s no getting away from the justice minister chosen from among the people’s elected representatives.  But it sure sounds like Canada’s lawyers and judges would like nothing better than to bypass that bothersome House of Commons completely.  Maybe they think "arm’s-length" means "a law unto themselves"?

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Philanthropy expert Arthur C. Brooks of Syracuse University has determined that religious conservatives give far more than secular liberals to charities of all kinds.  That finding holds true across all income levels. The research is set forth in a new book, Who Really Cares: The Surprising Truth About Compassionate Conservatism, to be released next week.

In the book, he cites extensive data analysis to demonstrate that values advocated by conservatives — from church attendance and two-parent families to the Protestant work ethic and a distaste for government-funded social services — make conservatives more generous than liberals.
. . .
When it comes to helping the needy, Brooks writes: "For too long, liberals have been claiming they are the most virtuous members of American society. Although they usually give less to charity, they have nevertheless lambasted conservatives for their callousness in the face of social injustice."

For the record, Brooks, 42, has been registered in the past as a Democrat, then a Republican, but now lists himself as independent, explaining, "I have no comfortable political home."

Religious conservatives who object to government-mandated redistribution of income give the most to charity, while liberals who support such programs give the least.  Even when it comes to non-monetary giving, such as blood donations and volunteering, liberals contribute less.

Such an attitude, he writes, not only shortchanges the nonprofits but also diminishes the positive fallout of giving, including personal health, wealth and happiness for the donor and overall economic growth.

All of this, he said, he backs up with statistical analysis.

Harvey Mansfield of Harvard University, who has not met Dr Brooks but has read his book, had this to say:

"His main finding is quite startling, that the people who talk the most about caring actually fork over the least.”

Dr Brooks admits he is not happy with his own results, in part because he was raised in a liberal household.  He does not consider himself a conservative or a supporter of the “religious right”, yet he knows his book will be deeply unpopular with liberals.

This new research is yet another nail in the coffin of the claim, made by Gregory S Paul and Skeptic magazine among others, that secularism is good (or, at least, not bad) for society.

Dr Brooks is Professor of Public Administration and Director of the Nonprofit Studies Program at Syracuse University's Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs. 

h/t: Clayton Cramer

Previous related post: Small group of Canadians provides lion’s share of charitable giving