Low Earth Orbit

What price car insurance?

[source, source]

Public auto insurance leads to more deaths, injuries, and property damage because it pays bad drivers to be on the road, concludes a new study, Public Auto Insurance: A Mortality Warning for Motorists, released today by The Fraser Institute. The study shows that provinces with public insurance systems (British Columbia, Saskatchewan, and Manitoba) have higher vehicle collision rates than the other provinces: * 18 percent more deaths per person. * 35 percent more deaths per kilometer traveled. * 46 percent more hospital admissions. * 59 percent more young male hospital admissions. The study examines 26 possible factors that could explain these differences and concludes that social risk pricing -- where good drivers subsidize the premiums of bad drivers -- is the key reason for more collisions.

Imagine that! Indulging bad behaviour creates a moral hazard. Who'd have thunk it?

The true enemy

[source, source] Al Qaeda admits that its primary opponent is secular democracy:

"It is not the American war machine that should be of the utmost concern to Muslims. What threatens the future of Islam, in fact its very survival, is American democracy". This is the message of a new book, published by Al Qaeda in several Arab countries yesterday. The book’s title is "The Future of Iraq and The Arabian Peninsula After The Fall of Baghdad". Its author is Yussuf al-Ayyeri, one of Osama Ben Laden’s closest associates since the early 1990s. A Saudi citizen, Al-Ayyeri, also known under the nom de guerre of Abu Muhammad, was killed in a gun-battle with security forces in Riyadh, the Saudi capital, last June.

I would say that this proves that Al Qaeda is at war with the West because of our virtues, not vices, but those who make that claim seem to view our secular democracy in the same way as Al Qaeda.

Idiotarian of the Year race heats up

[source, source] Reacting to an early lead by Arthur Miller, last year's winner Jimmy Carter is working hard for a comeback:

Former U.S. president and Nobel Peace laureate Jimmy Carter said on Friday that guaranteeing North Korea's security was critical to solving the crisis over Pyongyang's nuclear program. […] "How do the other nations -- primarily the United States -- give North Korea absolute assurance that (it) will not be attacked, oppressed further economically, or efforts made to overthrow the regime," he said.

Worried about _further_ oppresion of North Korea? Carter's got a lot more darkness than just lust in his heart if he can visualize how to oppress the North Koreans more than they are now.

EU concedes one to reality

[source, source]

RIVA DEL GARDA, Italy (Reuters) - European Union foreign ministers on Saturday denounced the political wing of Hamas as a terrorist organization following the group's claim of responsibility for a truce-shattering bomb attack in Jerusalem.

Apparent the reality blocking field still has a few bugs in it.