Let's talk about replacing GWBush in 2004.

Simplicity people

Right-wing governments 'increase suicide rates'

23:01 18 September 02

NewScientist.com news service

Right-wing governments may sap some people's will to live and result in more suicides, conclude studies in Britain and Australia.

The researchers speculate that losers are more likely to kill themselves in the individualistic, "winner-takes-all" societies favoured by right wing governments, because they are left to fend for themselves. Wide disparities in wealth also sharpen any sense of hopelessness, the researchers argue.

"If you fail under that ideology, it would accentuate your feelings of failure," says Mary Shaw, whose team at the University of Bristol analysed suicide trends in England and Wales over the past century.

Left wing governments tend to be more "inclusive" and community based, she says, decreasing the isolation felt by people down on their luck. Shaw's team calculates that over the past century, 35,000 extra suicides occurred when the Tories were in power.

"That's equivalent to one suicide for every day of the 20th Century, or two for every day that the Conservatives ruled," the team write in the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health.

Britain's Conservative Party declined to comment on the findings.

Double trouble

Shaw and her colleagues found that on average, suicide rates were 17 per cent higher when the Conservatives were in power, compared to the annual average of 103 suicides per million population when opposition parties held office.

Richard Taylor and his team in the School of Public Health at the University of Sydney found similar trends over the past century in New South Wales. When Right-wing governments were in power, men were 17 per cent more likely and women 40 per cent more likely to commit suicide.

They report that rates were highest whenever Right wing governments held power both at federal and state levels.

Both studies reached their conclusions after taking into account other factors that affect suicide rates, such as economic slumps, wartime, and even a surge of suicides among women in the 1960s when sedatives became widely available.

"You've never had it so good"

But the same trend always emerged, even at times of economic boom such as the "you've-never-had-it-so-good" years when Harold MacMillan led the UK's Tory government between 1957 and 1963.

During that time, annual suicides peaked at 137 per million population. Shaw points out that rates were almost as high in the 1930s (135 per million) when Labour's Ramsay McDonald headed a coalition, but she believes the primary reason then was the century's worst economic slump.

The lowest rate was 85 per million, during the Liberal government of David Lloyd George between 1916 and 1920. Now, under Tony Blair, it is back to the non-Conservative average of 103, down from 121 during Margaret Thatcher's first term in the early 1980s.

Shaw admits that attempts to connect the differences to ideologies are pure speculation. "But I'd be very interested to see if suicide rates are higher wherever there's a Right-wing government," she says. "I'd be particularly interested to see if the relationship holds in the US."

A study published in July 2001 found that US Republicans are almost three times more likely to have nightmares than Democrats. But a Republican spokesman told New Scientist at the time: "If we are, it's because we're left cleaning up the mess left by eight years of Bill Clinton. We sleep better now Bush is in the White House."

Journal reference: Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health. (vol 56, p 723, p 766)

Andy Coghlan

Evidence: Most socialistic(european,canada) countries have a suicide rate that is almost double that of the U.S. Are they somehow more prone to suicide, or does their society just kinda suck?

> Charley Reese is a columnist for the King Features Syndicate. He turns
out
> three columns a week and is known as a staunchly committed conservative. I

Nothing could make Ann Coulter look warm and fuzzy. Absolutely nothing.

Get-out-the-vote phones run by Democrats and the nonpartisan Manchester firefighters union were jammed on Election Day two years ago by more than 800 computer-generated hang-up calls. The calls tied up the phones for about 1 1/2 hours.

Last summer, Chuck McGee, former executive director of the state GOP, pleaded guilty to conspiracy and admitted paying $15,600 to a Virginia telemarketing company that hired another business to make the calls. GOP consultant Allen Raymond, former president of GOP Marketplace in Alexandria, Va., also pleaded guilty.

At their plea hearings in federal court, McGee and Raymond acknowledged speaking to an unidentified official with a national political organization about the jamming. Democrats have said they believe that Tobin was the official and that he might have put McGee and Raymond together.

now george, don't talk bad about Teddy........I like him. And Senator Leahy, well he's my hero too. You're such a lovely man.......why do you have such twisted ideas?

In the Oval Office in December 2002, the president met with a few ranking senators and members of the House, both Republicans and Democrats. In those days, there were high hopes that the United States-sponsored ''road map'' for the Israelis and Palestinians would be a pathway to peace, and the discussion that wintry day was, in part, about countries providing peacekeeping forces in the region. The problem, everyone agreed, was that a number of European countries, like France and Germany, had armies that were not trusted by either the Israelis or Palestinians. One congressman -- the Hungarian-born Tom Lantos, a Democrat from California and the only Holocaust survivor in Congress -- mentioned that the Scandinavian countries were viewed more positively. Lantos went on to describe for the president how the Swedish Army might be an ideal candidate to anchor a small peacekeeping force on the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. Sweden has a well-trained force of about 25,000. The president looked at him appraisingly, several people in the room recall.

''I don't know why you're talking about Sweden,'' Bush said. ''They're the neutral one. They don't have an army.''

Lantos paused, a little shocked, and offered a gentlemanly reply: ''Mr. President, you may have thought that I said Switzerland. They're the ones that are historically neutral, without an army.'' Then Lantos mentioned, in a gracious aside, that the Swiss do have a tough national guard to protect the country in the event of invasion.

Bush held to his view. ''No, no, it's Sweden that has no army.''

The room went silent, until someone changed the subject.

Report: Jeb Bush ignored felon list advice
State officials allegedly warned Florida governor of flaws

The Associated Press
Updated: 4:57 a.m. ET Oct. 17, 2004

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. - Florida Gov. Jeb Bush ignored advice to throw out a flawed felon voter list before it went out to county election offices despite warnings from state officials, according to a published report Saturday.

In a May 4 e-mail obtained by the Sarasota Herald-Tribune, Florida Department of Law Enforcement computer expert Jeff Long told his boss that a Department of State computer expert had told him "that yesterday they recommended to the Gov that they 'pull the plug"' on the voter database.

The e-mail said state election officials "weren't comfortable with the felon matching program they've got," but added, "The Gov rejected their suggestion to pull the plug, so they're 'going live' with it this weekend."

Long, who was responsible for giving elections officials his department's felon database, confirmed the contents of the e-mail Friday to the Herald-Tribune. He said he didn't remember the specifics, but that Paul Craft, the Department of State's top computer expert, had told him about the meeting with Bush.

A software program matched data on felons with voter registration rolls to create the list of 48,000 names. Secretary of State Glenda Hood junked the database in July after acknowledging that 2,500 ex-felons on the list had had their voting rights restored.

Most were Democrats, and many were black. Hispanics, who often vote Republican in Florida, were almost entirely absent from the list due to a technical error.

Governor denies allegations

Bush's spokeswoman, Jill Bratina, denied allegations that the governor ignored warnings about the list.

"It's also irrelevant because the list isn't being used," Bratina said Saturday.

Bush told the Herald-Tribune that Craft didn't call him, and he denied that any meeting took place May 3 with Craft or other election officials.

Leahy is an arrogant snob.