Wednesday, March 12. 2014
The point Obama makes here is valid, but begs a larger question, because it impacts his argument in support of a higher minimum wage.
The caller on this program made $36,000 per year, more than double minimum wage (and likely due to multiple household earners). However, if minimum wage is so low, can people on minimum wage who have cable and a cell phone (and many do) make the same choices? Minimum wage is providing enough for certain 'luxuries' which, in the grand scheme of things, are really just trade-offs for what we consider important in our lives. Obama's response indicates even the most leftish of liberals recognize this.
The discussion on minimum wage is much larger, of course. Most people earning it are not Head of Household, and most live in larger family groups with several earners. Regarding the president's response, however, we exposed to insight on the man's psyche. He realizes that managing your life is a series of choices, some better and some worse. But he's unwilling to allow people to make most of those choices on their own. It must be on his terms. His healthcare, his minimum wage, his regulations must all be in place before you or anyone else is allowed to make the necessary choices needed to run your life.
Me? I'd rather have health care than a cell and cable when my finances are strained. But you may not. Right now, Obama's argument to raise minimum wage is that you shouldn't have to make this choice. But we all make choices, Mr. President. It's how an economy works.
Tuesday, March 11. 2014
For me, a climate change agnostic, the mocking of climate change is no better than the strident protests that the sky is falling. Charles Krauthammer, hardly a liberal voice, says, "I'm not a global warming believer. I'm not a global warming denier. I've long believed that it cannot be good for humanity to be spewing tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere." The last statement is critical because it implies that driving your kids to school in a Hummer is potentially hurting all of us.
The earth is an ecosystem, not an organism. Volcanic eruptions and asteroid collisions have serious consequences on the planet, on species (extinctions, for example), on climate and who knows what else. If the carbon density is a factor leading towards an environmental disaster, and it is a big if, what suffer you to reduce your carbon footprint? Or would you rather be the thirty-five year old who doesn't buy health insurance because "statistically I am at low risk for serious illness." You do the math.
Also, and this is dicey, no one factors the amount of carbon dioxide put into the atmosphere every minute by 7 billion plus people not to mention the bovine methane from the cows contributing to your McDonald's diet. I'm just sayin' . . .
Sunday, March 9. 2014
After years of sacrifice, they just want to live it up a little before they get old and die. Shame on them.
As Promised, the Limbaugh Take on the Teen Suing Her Baby Boomer Parents
More on California water insanity.
Everybody wants water, but there is never enough of it for everybody, especially in a basically dry state. I guess that's what politics is for.
Friday, March 7. 2014
 Can you guess which offense puts the most Americans in federal prison?
Idiot government policy is the real answer.
The Next Ailes: Newsmax's Chris Ruddy Preps TV Rival to Fox News
RadioShack Still Stuck in the '80s
Staples to Close 225 North American Stores – Radio Shack to Close 1100 Stores
New SAT announced
Why is American internet so slow? The country that literally invented the internet
is now behind Estonia in terms of download speeds
ABC, CBS Exclude Scientists Critical of Global Warming for More Than 1,300 Days
No disagreement allowed? So what about this?
Ralph Peters: "Putin Is Not Crazy Or Delusional; Our President And This Administration Are Delusional"
Amusing: A Maddow in MSNBCland
Would be amusing satire except it is too true: How Hard Will We Be on the Post-Obama President?
Almost satire: A Letter From Cass Sunstein
Paul Ryan Should Keep Talking About Poverty, Even If it Annoys the New York Times
Michael Milken: How Housing Policy Hurts the Middle Class - Many buyers decided that the largest-possible house was a better idea than a retirement fund or a child's education.
Free Speech for bigots and obnoxious pranksters?
Andrew Cuomo Declares War on Bill De Blasio's Charter School Crackdown
ABC,
CBS Exclude Scientists Critical of Global Warming for More Than 1,300
Days - See more at:
http://cnsnews.com/mrctv-blog/sean-long/cold-shoulder-abc-cbs-exclude-scientists-critical-global-warming-more-1300-days#sthash.rPBauqoG.dpuf
Thursday, March 6. 2014
Sex, secrets, and self-mortification: the dark side of the confessional
Let Sippy Cups Into the Metropolitan Opera?
Python eats crocodile
Author of "How We Die" dies
Woodrow Wilson: Schoolmaster to the world
The New York Metro's Economy Is Almost as Large as Australia's
E-Cigarettes Are Bad Because They Look Like Cigarettes; E-Hookahs Are Worse Because They Don't
Peter Atwater: An 'Oligopoly in Confidence' Puts Global Markets at Risk
Will Washington Take Down Apple? If So, Why?
New Rule Creates Avalanche Of Time-Wasting Paperwork For Doctors
Has America Become a Class Society? In upstate New York, Karen Moreau shows just how
The Biggest Lesson From The UAW's Defeat In Chattanooga: We Have Lousy Labor Laws
Faculty at Rutgers Urges School to Drop Condoleezza Rice as Speaker
New Obamacare Strategy: Anything to Get Through the Midterms
MORE LAWLESSNESS – Obama Gives “Sub-Standard” Health Plans Another 2 Two Year Reprieve
Obamacare Architect: 'You Don't Need a Doctor for Every Part of Your Health Care'
Obamacare
Architect: 'You Don't Need a Doctor for Every Part of Your Health Care'
- See more at:
http://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/susan-jones/obamacare-architect-you-dont-need-doctor-every-part-your-health-care#sthash.gM5Ydqw3.In2Xnf98.dpuf
Obamacare
Architect: 'You Don't Need a Doctor for Every Part of Your Health Care'
- See more at:
http://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/susan-jones/obamacare-architect-you-dont-need-doctor-every-part-your-health-care#sthash.gM5Ydqw3.In2Xnf98.dpuf
Henninger: Putin Carterizes Obama, Totally
DNC Attendees Can't Name a Single Hillary Accomplishment
Wehner: Obama’s Journey from Arrogance to Incompetence
DNC Attendees Can't Name a Single Hillary Accomplishment
- See more at:
http://www.cnsnews.com/mrctv-blog/matt-vespa/dnc-attendees-cant-name-single-hillary-accomplishment#sthash.Ak8dqyDt.tJEEsymu.dpuf
Obamacare
Architect: 'You Don't Need a Doctor for Every Part of Your Health Care'
- See more at:
http://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/susan-jones/obamacare-architect-you-dont-need-doctor-every-part-your-health-care#sthash.gM5Ydqw3.In2Xnf98.dpuf
Obamacare
Architect: 'You Don't Need a Doctor for Every Part of Your Health Care'
- See more at:
http://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/susan-jones/obamacare-architect-you-dont-need-doctor-every-part-your-health-care#sthash.gM5Ydqw3.In2Xnf98.dpuf
Monday, March 3. 2014
Michelle Obama: America's Moms Are 'Confused and Bewildered,' 'Defeated' by Grocery Shopping
Lego Tops U.S. Toymaker Rivals as Full-Year Sales Jump 10%
Small-Time City in Vermont Has Big-Time Heroin Problem
Announcing a New Book! Heading Out On Your Own: 31 Basic Life Skills in 31 Days
How to Pick Your Life Partner
Bwahahaha 101 Week at College Insurrection
Can human nature be discussed on campus?
Dear America, you’re too smart to listen to Beyonce
Man sues McDonald´s for $1.5 million after being given only one napkin
Atheism’s radical new heroes: Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris and an evolving new moral view
The Insiders: Liberals are destroying the planet
Obama Administration to Distribute 13,000 Armored Mine-Resistant Vehicles to Police Units Around the US
Michigan Township To Put Cameras ‘In Every Neighborhood’
Why the Grahams sold the WaPo
‘We Need to Quit Acting So Freaking Defeated’: Dems Plot Blue Creep in Deep South
Putin Smashes Washington’s Cocoon
Ukraine: The Haze of Propaganda
The Upcoming Fifth Anniversary of Hillary’s Reset Button
Despite proven academic success of NYC’s charter schools, the mayor and unions have started a war on city’s charter kids
Pielke: John Holdren's Epic Fail
“As a journalist, you weigh how much you should criticize the president because he’s black.”
Dog-Killing Afghan Refugee to Swedes: “Throw Me Out and I’ll Kill 10 of You”
Germany’s Energiewende: A Path to Economic Self-Destruction
John Fund:
George W. Bush famously told Colin Powell, his secretary of state, that he thought the Russian leader was religious. “Powell, I looked into Putin’s eyes and I saw his soul.” To which Powell replied: “Mr. President, I looked into President Putin’s eyes and I saw the KGB.”
Sunday, March 2. 2014
Spengler makes the case: Ukraine Is Hopeless … but Not Serious.
This is amusing: Sweet Nothings - Obama’s Smart Diplomacy:
Here’s the Kremlin’s summary of the call. In a nutshell: a) The U.S. wanted the call so Putin took it. b) Nothing Obama said to Putin was particularly worth noting. c) Putin explicitly told Obama he reserves the right to move further into Ukraine.
Smart diplomacy at work. Putin is surely quaking in his boots.
Russia is a crappy country full of poor drunks run by KGB thugs. It just happens to produce the most beautiful women in the world - until they turn 35. The Ukraine is another crappy country run by thugs. Should I - or Obama - really care what these people do? I can find no reason to care, but I do feel for all of the people in the world who are living in crappy places with crappy and corrupt governments with delusions of grandeur. It's the norm in the world.
Friday, February 28. 2014
At Zero Hedge, a commenter:
"As an observer, this is like watching Russia beat up its old girlfriend, and one wonders, why didn't she just get away years ago?"
Says Paul Rahe: Vladimir Putin: The World's Greatest Fool:
"Russia is a banana republic with nuclear weapons."
Thursday, February 27. 2014
A reason to walk your dog: California couple finds $10 million in buried treasure while walking dog
Farrow, After Three Days on the Air, Receives Cronkite Award
Why are educated adults slim - Causation or selection?
Zero Tolerance Teaches Students Important Lessons About Authority: Don’t Share Information, Don’t Consent to Searches
Do Schools Need To Learn a Lesson about gender from... Facebook?
Good grief
NY Middle School Girls Forced to Ask Classmates for “Lesbian Kiss” Pretend Like They Are On a Date
Whole Foods, Junk Science, and the National Pseudo-Intelligentsia
Why Our Nutrition Facts Need an Overhaul
Dem Candidate Admits Immigration Reform A Cheap Labor Import
Obama's New Asylum Decree Favors Muslims Over Christians
“Cow Sex” Pervert Judge Orders YouTube to Remove “Innocence of Muslims” Trailer
The Period Of No Global Warming Will Soon Be Longer Than the Period of Actual Global Warming
An Open Letter to CNN’s Carol Costello on ‘Why are we still debating climate change?’
Could A Carbon Tax Have Prevented The 1815 Hurricane In Providence?
Increased domestic spending may be behind proposed military cuts, CBO report suggests
Obama Asks Court To Make NSA Database Even Bigger
Ed. by Podhoretz: The New War on Israel: And How to Fight Back
France's Reckoning: Rich, Young Flee Welfare State:
When France's richest man, Bernard Arnault, announced he was leaving over France's new 75 percent super tax on the rich, he got the journalistic equivalent of a kick out the door.
"The full headline in [the Leftist newspaper] Liberation was, 'Get lost, you rich b***d,'" Moutet recalled. "In this country the general attitude in the media, on television, etc., is that bosses are wrong, companies are wrong, and creating business is dubious at best and dishonest at worst."
France is being battered by both a brain drain and capital flight and risks becoming one of the poorer nations in Western Europe.
Wednesday, February 26. 2014
Some insecurity goes a long way toward successful students
Dalrymple: Everybody is trying to collect my personal info
Mom and her kids visit an art gallery
Respecting husbands
Does the 1st Amendment apply to students?
Student Diversity Group at Dartmouth Threatens Physical Action if Demands Aren’t Met
Good grief
How is your state doing with its government pensions?
Long but good: What Killed Egyptian Democracy?
Extracted from our commenter Taquiya
Unbeknownst to you, I am surrounded by people who claim to identify with the tea party and/or go to the meetings. Most of my family , extended family, friends and associates for starters. When I ask them what they are willing to do to stop the runaway federal spending, they have nothing to offer. Well, they want their taxes reduced a bit. Maybe ease back a bit on defense spending, maybe. But not the veteran's benefits. Most of them resent the welfare queens and food stamp recipients and most of them won't say so out loud. Most are not thrilled with the bank bailouts. But, not one of them is willing to stop paying taxes. None of them would touch 95% of the federal budget. None of them would surrender any of their own federally funded benefits. So, where does that leave us? It leaves us with the conclusion that the members of the tea party want their goodies and are willing to pay enough tax dollars to keep them. But they don't want to pay for some of the goodies other people get. It's just simple logic.
It may be that you don't quite grasp the extent of the gravy train. Or maybe you have so much money, it just doesn't matter? The federal spending train subsidizes nearly everything in this country. And I mean everything. Would you really put all those people out of work - at one stroke? If so, the anarchists would love to have you join their group.
Educated Mainstream: The Bastion
of Western anti-Semitism
Venezuela Violence and Latin America's Divide
Analysis: Venezuela’s violence, Cuba’s ‘farce,’ and Marco Rubio’s milestone speech
The Stakes in
Ukraine - Putin's "Eurasionist" dreams threaten us all
The story of a remarkable reporter: Political Hatred in Argentina - An Interview with Uki Goñi
Tuesday, February 25. 2014
I am highlighting a link from this morning: Voting to Hike Subsidies for People Who Build in Flood Plains.
Whether you accept global warming alarmism or not, on the face of it it makes no sense for the average sensible taxpayer to subsidize others' living or building in recognized flood zones, whether on the NJ coast, the Mississippi, the North Carolina barrier beaches, or anywhere else. It's like pitching a tent in a Western river gulch which is prone to flash floods. Periodic flooding in coastal areas and on flood plains is natural and environmentally-beneficial. The unpleasant consequences for people are entirely predictable. I would neither live in a flood zone nor in a wildfire zone without calculating that I could lose it all. People do not act this stupid unless they are paid or subsidized to do so. At the least, let the owner pay the full cost of the insurance. Caveat Emptor.
Yes, I do remember that Al Gore just built one of his new mansions in an ocean flood zone in San Francisco, but that's Al Gore and he can hold back the water (or was that Moses, or Obama?).
VDH on the rich, hip Liberals:
From the Google-only bus that bypasses the heralded “public mass transit” to pick up the richeral in his overpriced, Hetch Hetchy-fed San Francisco Victorian, to the tony private academies that richerals’ kids attend, to the Mexican national help that cleans the floors and watches the toddlers before going home to the crammed garage in Redwood City, to the big money that always seems to find exemption from the redistributionist tentacles — such hypocrisy and self-righteousness sermonizing have done more harm to the culture and social fabric of the U.S. than any ideology of the last half-century.
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You Thought You Were Educated
Wild beavers 