Sunday, February 20. 2011
"We do want more, and when it becomes more, we shall still want more. And we shall never cease to demand more until we have received the results of our labor." - Samuel Gompers
 FDR's Ghost Is Smiling on Wisconsin's Governor
Prof B: The case against public sector unionism
Carney: In Wisconsin, it's the unions vs. the people:
In the romantic liberal vision of this union uprising, determined workers are standing up to the powerful. But there's no fat-cat owner wanting to pocket more profits here. The unions' target in Wisconsin is the taxpayer.
At bottom, this is the unions versus the people.
Palin has it right: Palin on Wis. Unions: ‘Wrong Fight at Wrong Time’
64% say government workers should not be represented by a union
As Surber puts it:
Those statehouse Republicans want to bust up that longstanding sweetheart deal in which public employee unions elect Democrats, who turn around and give the unions anything they want.
This arrangement between the unions and Democrats has led to unfunded liabilities for pension and benefits for retirees that now total $1.5 trillion to $3 trillion among the states.
I think the backlash is going to be harsh, and the Presidents' joining the fray is going to hurt him with the middle class. Too many taxpayers feel left out of the equation and resent the apparent greed, childishness, anger, bullying, and inflexibility of the people who are in their employ. It's understood that there is much - if not everything - at stake for the government unions who currently seem to own the Dem Party. However, by making such a conspicuous and unappealing spectacle during a time when so many are out of work, underemployed, or plain hurting, far more people are becoming aware of the sorts of generous deals these unions have made with their Dem patrons in the cities and states.
Only government employees get pensions these days, and many governments have switched to normal 401-Ks.
As Gov. Walker commented, the people of Wisconsin are saying "Hey, where can I sign up for this deal?"
I think people are most appalled by the teachers' behavior. People want to admire teachers. They are damaging their reputations and damaging their cause, so I suspect they will evoke little sympathy regardless of whatever justice may be in their cause.
Hats off to Gov Christie, TigerHawk's "Governor Awesome," for having shown the way to sanity and responsibility.
Saturday, February 19. 2011
 This is actually somewhat rare. It's one thing if individual bloggers face off, like some squabble between Andrew Sullivan and Glenn Reynolds, but the big league blogging sites, like Pajamas Media, Townhall, Politico and RealClearPolitics, usually refrain from any specific finger-pointing or name-calling.
Still, I agree that this Politico piece of AGW sputum is an exception. As I was reading it, I was thinking in the back of my mind, "Wow, what is this, 2003?" Then I get down to the comments and some guy's exclaiming, "Wow, this looks like a piece from 2003!" It just reeks of nostalgia. The only thing missing was any mention of the polar bears and their sad, plaintive plight.
The problem, as with any AGW article these days, is that the question that immediately arises is, do they know what they're claiming is complete bullshit — and thus they're just flat-out lying to us? Is it money, power, sex? Ego, pride, reputation? Or are they honestly so naive as to believe everything they read in the MSM and disregard the rest? As the renown TigerHawk would ask, can you think of a third alternative?
First, if you dare:
Galileo Moment for GOP
I have no comment as I read it yesterday and my mind has mercifully deleted the entire contents — and I refuse to go through such an ugly ordeal again. My guess is that he was entirely correct about the warming part, right up until he used the word "man".
The response from RealClearPolitics is not only a superb piece in itself as he totally dismantles the guy, but it also has some interesting background on Galileo, which is actually why I'm posting it. I don't do straight AGW anymore. The whole topic is just so 2010.
Galileo and the Scientific Pose of the Left
I would only add that despite my having a plethora of questions for the author of the first article, the very first question — as it relates to the title of his post — would be, "What does global warming have to do with the GOP and politics?" From the title of his post, alone, he exposes the fact that this is an ideological rant bent along established party lines, not an independent review of a scientific question. It's just amazing lefty writers don't understand how clearly we see through the ideological patina they cover themselves with.
As a small footnote, Bird Dog did one of his semi-annual "Tell your friends about Maggie's Farm" posts the other day. When you describe it to them, you can now add, "It's the kind of site where you'll see the words plethora and patina in the same paragraph!"
I mean, is dis a classy joint, or what!
Friday, February 18. 2011
ObamaCare reduces the number of tax-paying Americans while increasing unemployment and adding to the personal and government costs of providing medical insurance.
It’s not just the 800,000 fewer workers seeking jobs under ObamaCare, as the CBO Director admitted last week to Congress, because the law will reduce "the propensity to work" in order to get medical insurance. With subsidized guaranteed issue of medical insurance, there will be less incentive to find a job with benefits. At the same time, medical insurance premiums will increase for all as ObamaCare’s guarantee issue creates an incentive to wait until ill to obtain insurance.
Further, due to higher required levels of benefits within allowed medical insurance policies, the premiums are increased for tens of millions, only deferred for this and maybe next year by the temporary waivers issued by the Obama administration.
On top of that, there will be untold tens or hundreds of thousands lower wage workers who want to work who will not be hired, because the required cost to employers of their medical insurance under ObamaCare is too high. The cost of medical insurance to employers under ObamaCare will be near as much as lower wage workers earn, especially for those with a family. Indeed, many are not being hired now, as businesses restrain hiring to prevent being locked-in when this 2014 job-killing effect of ObamaCare kicks in.
In 2014, employers with 50 or more full-time employees, 30 hours a week or more, may only charge employees 8% of their income for their contribution toward employer-provided medical insurance. For a worker earning $125,000, that amounts to $10,000 toward the typical $20,000 annual cost of family coverage. That leaves the employer with $10,000 to pay, or an additional 8% above wages. For a worker earning $25,000, that amounts to $2,000 toward the typical $20,000 annual cost of family coverage. That leaves the employer with $18,000 to pay, or an additional 72% above wages.
Many sane employers will think twice and more before hiring that will bring its head-count to 50 or more. Many sane employers will hire those who are single, instead of with families, because of the required 8% of singles’ lower medical insurance premium. Many sane employers will seek efficiencies and technologies to avoid hiring lower-wage workers. Many sane employers will reduce hours worked by lower-wage workers in order to reduce its full-time head-count. Many sane employers will rather pay the $2,000 per worker ObamaCare penalty by ending its medical insurance program and letting the government provide medical insurance.
The ultimate toll of ObamaCare will be far greater than the $trillions in budget costs already estimated. ObamaCare’s budget costs will actually be even larger, and so will the as yet uncounted costs. The US tax-base will shrink while the number of unemployed will remain high.
The Constitutional challenges to ObamaCare center on the individual mandate, and on that causing the whole of ObamaCare to be thrown out of court. There is no other court recourse against these other travesties of ObamaCare. Only a Congress with both houses overcoming a Presidential veto can save us, or 2012 bringing us more in the Senate willing to vote for repeal and a new President willing to sign off. It will be important to get across to lower-wage earners that they have much at stake in 2012.
 Sipp links to a cool Vatican site
Farmer VDH wants an end to farm subsidies.
But Maggie's Farm wants those free government goodies.
Who owns the schools in Wisconsin? The taxpayers or the union?
Massachusetts towns owe $20B for retiree health care
Amid Crisis, US State Workers Say: 'Don't Blame Us'
Pensions after 20 years? I thought nobody got that except cops and firemen.
Boston's Mayor: “Wal-Mart does not suit the clientele we have in the city of Boston. I don’t need employers like that in our city.”
Andy Kessler: Is Your Job an Endangered Species?
Technology is eating jobs—and not just obvious ones like toll takers and phone operators. Lawyers and doctors are at risk as well.
Re Pigford:
USDA employees and FBI officials estimate that the number of fraudulent claims ranges from 50 to 95 percent. Boyd takes issue with those statistics, though.
Imagine if Tea Partiers behaved this way
Gore Effect by proxy.
Thursday, February 17. 2011
 Michael Milken warned us: The capital strike on the healthcare sector--update
Anchors Away: American Sea Power in Dry Dock
Why doubts about Obama's history persist
States rejecting high speed rail
McArdle: The Ever-More-Desperate Health Care Budget Gimmicks
America’s corporate tax rates are driving economic activity abroad.
Amusing things on the radio today:
- The excellent Doug McIntyre on Red Eye Radio: "I'm an analog guy in a digital world."
- Rush: "The Obama administration says we need windmills and railroads to grow. That might have been true in 1825, but what about now?"
The whole story of Pigford
Here they come! Egyptians reach Italy amid worry about Arab exodus. Also, here come the Tunisians.
The voice of the Muslim Brotherhood
Tiger:
Increasingly, innovative companies are avoiding going public, and confining their capital-raising to the now vast private capital markets. This is not surprising; we have made it so unpleasant to be an executive of a public company that I do not know one who would not rather be private. Worse, the people who do succeed at public companies are experts in process and governance, and not very likely to make imaginative leaps or forge new businesses from the wreckage of the old.
From Steyn's Where's the Muscle?
...getting a grip on mass immigration would at least signal to existing foreign residents that the west has ceased to fetishize civilizational suicide as moral narcissism. For Sarkozy, Merkel and Cameron to give speeches arguing that their societies have failed to turn immigrants into citizens to a degree that threatens social cohesion while simultaneously leaving the doors wide open suggests a certain lack of seriousness.
Dr. Sanity rants: Sharia Sucks!
Nordlinger:
...it’s one thing if teachers just want to be hard-core unionists, no different from the least pretentious laborers you can think of. It’s just the “for the children” stuff that’s so hard to swallow.
More links later today -
 As Chicago Boyz says:
Obama is not “failing to lead” as some people are claiming. That is all wrong. All suggestions to that effect are all wrong. Obama knows exactly what he is doing.
Obama is setting up a confrontation and he plans to win.
Call it Chess, or call it Rope-a-Dope; it's a DC game but the MSM will never say so.
Same theme from Jacobson: You Are The "Suckers" Democrats Have Been Waiting For.
And at Politico: Has Obama set GOP entitlement trap?
Meanwhile, Kendall at The Hill loves Obama's budget proposal.
Wednesday, February 16. 2011
Religious as well as non-sectarian writings all contain various prescriptions and injunctions related to their view of morality. Most Americans recognize the difference between individual morality and state morality, as exemplified in the two versions of the Golden Rule. Individual morality is violated when state morality is violated.
The prescriptive Golden Rule – rule for a better life by individuals and voluntary associations -- comes down to do to others what one would want done to oneself. The variation, the injunctive Golden Rule – the prohibition, not to do to others what one wouldn’t want done to oneself, is more limited and more applicable to manmade laws that have restraints upon the extent of state power.
When the latter, the injunctive Golden Rule, is violated by the state, there is an intrusion into the former, the prescriptive Golden Rule. To some or many affected, there is a denial of their individual moral rights. The state mandates behaviors that force individuals to act in ways that they would not want to be done to themselves.
The upholding of the injunctive Golden Rule is closest to our Constitution and to the philosophy of libertarianism. The violation of that injunction is closest to those philosophies or political movements, whether from the Left or Right, which seek to force their particular moral political agenda upon others.
Our Constitution works to restrain these violations.
The legal debate is moving through our courts over whether the Commerce Clause or the Necessary and Proper Clause of the Constitution allow the mandating of purchasing medical insurance. Advocates of the mandate argue for it as increasing the ability to obtain more affordable medical care by increasing the breadth of the insurance pool. Opponents challenge that affordability assertion due the impracticalities of creating such a broad pool without unacceptable draconian measures, and due to the sheer demand-cost inflation created for more medical services by many more. However, the Constitutional issue is whether the state can require activities, as compared to enjoin activities.
Those not at the poles – either libertarian or moralistic – are the majority of Americans. In most cases, once the poles have argued, and courageous individuals entered the fray to focus the discussion regardless of the heat from the poles, the majority of Americans do not so much compromise as recognize the necessary interaction between the prescriptive, individual Golden Rule and the injunctive, state Golden Rule.
Tuesday, February 15. 2011
The Fashion Cops are on the prowl:
As fashionistas and celebrities pile into New York City this week for Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week, they might want to do a look over of their outfits before heading out. The reason? The fashion police just got themselves a brand new patrol car. Black and white, with sirens and yellow flashing lights, the Mercedes-Benz Fashion Force will be paroling the streets of New York City in their 2012 CLS63 AMG. Serious powerplant built and modified by AMG, the 518-horsepower engine about to do 0 to 62 mph in 4.4 seconds. Fast enough to stop anyone in the middle of a styling faux pas and nip any fashion disaster in the bud. Look for the Mercedes-Benz Fashion Force CLS63 AMG around your block this week.
Monday, February 14. 2011
Sunday, February 13. 2011
Saturday, February 12. 2011
Friday, February 11. 2011
Over the transom:
The Washington Post
"The Arctic ocean is warming up, icebergs are growing scarcer and in some places the seals are finding the water too hot, according to a report to the Commerce Department yesterday from Consulafft, at Bergen, Norway. Reports from fishermen, seal hunters and explorers all point to a radical change in climate conditions and hitherto unheard-of temperatures in the Arctic zone. Exploration expeditions report that scarcely any ice has been met as far north as 81 degrees 29 minutes. Soundings to a depth of 3,100 meters showed the gulf stream still very warm. Great masses of ice have been replaced by moraines of earth and stones, the report continued, while at many points well known glaciers have entirely disappeared.
"Very few seals and no white fish are found in the eastern Arctic, while vast shoals of herring and smelt which have never before ventured so far north, are being encountered in the old seal fishing grounds. Within a few years it is predicted that due to the ice melt the sea will rise and make most coastal cities uninhabitable."
I apologize, I neglected to mention that this report was from November 2, 1922. As reported by the AP and published in The Washington Post……… 88 years ago!
Thursday, February 10. 2011
Ah, those wacky third-world countries!
Romanian Witches May Face Prison If Predictions Don't Come True
"There's more bad news in the cards for Romania's beleaguered witches."
Family Set For Exorcism
"A South African family who are plagued by mysterious fires will be celebrating this Friday with an exorcism."
Malaysia To Ban Heavy Metal Music In Order To Quell Rise In Satanism
"Malaysia is considering banning heavy metal music to crack down on an allegedly satanic youth organisation."
Yep, if it weren't for the goofy stuff coming out of those third-world countries, we wouldn't have anything to laugh about at all.
And look, here we go again!
Headless Ghost Forces Theme Park to Move Ride
Pretty amazing, eh? A huge theme park has to relocate a ride because of a... ghost?
Bosses at a theme park were forced to move a new ride after workers reported seeing what appeared to be a headless monk.
A paranormal detection agency called in by park bosses to carry out tests found that an ancient burial ground or settlement could have been disturbed.
Paranormal expert Jim Arnold, who carried out tests at the site, said that "results were picked up immediately, with orbs, ghostly images in photography and Ouija reaction results being strongest around the site where they were proposing to build Storm Surge. The results were so strong we felt the only explanation could be that an ancient burial ground or settlement was being disturbed, prompting the extra paranormal activity."
Wouldn't you just love to know what an Ouija reaction result is? The person holding the board hiccuped and the pointer moved?
And I like the term "extra" paranormal activity — as referred to the normal amount of paranormal activity found at construction sites.
Oh, and the name of this backwater third-world country caving to medieval superstition?
Well, just click on the link and find out for yourself.
I'd hate to spoil the fun.
 Dylan to share Grammy stage with Mumford, Avett Brothers
Does an academic dare come out of the (political) closet?
They shouldn't hide their real identities. But if they are all weenies, they could always play the victim card and scream "McCarthyism."
Am Thinker: Why Can't My Health Insurance Be Like My Car Insurance?
The Weather Isn't Getting Weirder - The latest research belies the idea that storms are getting more extreme.
It's just getting reported more hysterically. Weather sells soap.
Homeowners face 'new normal' in housing bust
If you bought before the bubble, you're doing just fine. Nationally, housing prices are now pretty much back to the historic trend line - thanks to a full inventory.
Malanga: Rhode Island: A Fiscal Mess Few Care About
Between chronic Dem control, unions, the Mob, and corruption, rational Rhode Island governance seems like a lost cause
Four Reasons Why Big Government Is Bad Government (h/t Linkiest)
Wednesday, February 9. 2011
Just when I thought it couldn’t get more inane, Brooklyn College is exposed for gross negligence in its hiring and supervision of a self-professed pro-Palestinian activist – a grad student himself -- to teach the Politics of the Middle East to other grad students.
As a reporter cites, Kristofer Petersen “makes no secret of his aggressively pro-Palestinian, anti-Zionist views.” The report, titled “Drawing Lessons From The Brooklyn College Uproar,” by quoting those directly involved in the hire, makes it evident from the horses' mouths that this hire is a horse’s ass, irresponsible, ignorant and unprofessional.
Although Petersen says of several dozen demonstrators who turned out to support him “he was disappointed that some of his defenders turned their speeches into diatribes against Israel,” Petersen nonetheless addressed them rather than leave. A Commenter to the report lists the virulent hate groups Petersen attracts.
Petersen says he modeled his heavily slanted syllabus on that of a professor of Mideast studies at CUNY’s Graduate Center, who recommended Petersen for the position. That professor, however, told the reporter, “the Israeli-Palestinian portion of his former student’s syllabus is different from his own and that Petersen-Overton includes some scholars he would never use in his own class.” He cites Edward Said, “not a Mideast scholar…much more political advocacy than scholarship”; Noam Chomsky, “a linguist, not an expert on the Mideast”; Ilan Pappe “sees himself as an advocate” not an objective historian. That professor says, “many of them should be balanced with others”. But they aren’t. This professor advised Petersen to keep his own views to himself, “but [the reporter sums up] this former student takes the opposite approach.” The recommending professor knew better but didn't act upon it.
Although the PoliSci professor who hired Petersen argued that he should be rehired after he was terminated, that professor says the “Israeli-Palestinian conflict [is] a subject with which Ungar isn’t familiar.” So, where was his competence to hire Petersen?
Another senior professor at the college says “academic freedom for adjuncts should begin once they distribute their syllabus – but not beforehand. ‘The department has influence, if not control, over the structure of the course, including readings and the topics to be covered.’ “ Instead, the PoliSci department abdicated its responsibility.
The report ends with this choice double-talk by Petersen of his slanted course: “Asked whether he sees himself as a scholar or an activist, the professor said he regards himself ‘as a scholar in my scholarly work and as an activist in my activist work. The answer would be both.' ”
Petersen, also, has a Brooklyn Bridge to sell. This gross negligence at Brooklyn College is a disgrace. If there’s a lesson to be learned, Brooklyn College must exercise proper vetting and supervision in its classrooms. Anything less would be another Brooklyn Bridge for sale on campus. Academic negligence, and slant, cannot be hidden behind or excused by chanting academic freedom.
Tuesday, February 8. 2011
That's the title of an opus by Vanderleun. (Bosch's image from his post which I am pleased to add to my image library.) He says:
These days it would seem that the 7 deadly sins are now the 7 cardinal virtues of the progressive left.
I had been having similar thoughts lately, especially regarding government avarice. It's a topsy-turvy world we live in, with Wonderland twists of language and meaning. Glad he wrote the piece.
At Liberty Pundits:
Here’s the quote: “If we’re fighting to reform the tax code and increase exports, the benefits cannot just translate into greater profits and bonuses for those at the top. They have to be shared by American workers, who need to know that opening markets will lift their standard of living as well as your bottom line,” President Obama told the Chamber of Commerce on Monday morning.
Really, Barry? And what if the company fails, do they share in the loss?
If an employee wishes to share in the risk of profits and losses, he can buy shares like anybody else.
Prof B explains it in legal detail: Obama Preaches the False Religion of Corporate Social Responsibility
Maine Family Robinson: 10 Luxuries We Don't Do Without
NYT: Social Scientist Sees Bias Within:
Anywhere in the world that social psychologists see women or minorities underrepresented by a factor of two or three, our minds jump to discrimination as the explanation,” said Dr. Haidt, who called himself a longtime liberal turned centrist. “But when we find out that conservatives are underrepresented among us by a factor of more than 100, suddenly everyone finds it quite easy to generate alternate explanations.”
Egypt Exposes Media Hypocrisy
The Apostate - Paul Haggis vs. the Church of Scientology. (h/t, Lucianne)
Rape flourishes in rubble of Haitian earthquake.
No functioning government, no functioning police force, no sanitation, crime rampant, no jobs, Baby Doc back and Aristide returning. What could go wrong?
Repubs: Are We Cutting Enough?
Too much college, and no skills:
The shortage of skilled workers is the No. 1 or No. 2 hiring challenge in six of the 10 biggest economies, Manpower found in a recent survey of 35,000 employers. Skilled trades were the top area of shortage in 10 of 17 European countries…
Apple CEO Steve Jobs on why dropping out of college was one of the best decisions he ever made.
Monday, February 7. 2011
We had to destroy the village to save it. As SDA says, Affirmative Action meets Wild Kingdom. Hubris never ends well.
Chart below via Pethokoukis:
Am Thinker: classroom discipline
George Soros, Enemy of the State
AOL to buy Maggie's Farm HuffPo for $315 million
EPA to Regulate Dairy Milk Spills as per Oil Spills
Follow the (green) money: Gore Launches $500M 'Green' Asian Fund
BROTHERHOOD DUMPS EL BARADEI; EL BARADEI DUMPS PEACE TREATY WITH ISRAEL
Women in the Cairo Street Scenes: a Troubling Photo Essay
Progressive Scotland: Anger as serial offenders are only sent to prison after clocking up 40 crimes
Cool: A shooting range in the West Side of Manhattan
Krauthammer brings Godzilla into the discussion
Obama invokes religious themes as 2012 campaign nears
Uncontacted peoples in Peru
James May takes a ride in a U2
What school vouchers have bought for my family
Krugman blames Egypt on global warming
Good, at Insty:
MORE ON THE FAILURE OF STATE MULTICULTURALISM. Unfortunately, a lot of people who are basically unemployable in productive fields have chosen it as their rice bowl.
But Nick Cohen writes in The Guardian that appeasement may be over. “I am not sure the prime minister understands that he is taking on a sensibility as much as a political platform. Because Britain was never invaded by the Nazis, and never suffered from any of the other versions of 20th-century tyranny, there is an unforgivable frivolity about our dealings with totalitarianism. Dilettante bureaucrats, journalists and intellectuals play with extremists and their ideas with the insouciance of men and women who know that they will never have to suffer the consequences of coping with extremists in power. The best gift the British can give the world in this moment of crisis is to imitate the crowds in North Africa and say enough of all of that. It is time to break away from a shameful past.”
Drudge amusingly juxtaposes:
White House announces Super Bowl menu: 'Bratwurst, Kielbasa, Cheeseburgers, Deep Dish Pizza, Buffalo Wings, German Potato Salad, Twice Baked Potatoes, Potato ChipS, Pretzels, Chips and Dips, Salad, Ice Cream'...
RESTAURANT NUTRITION DRAWS FOCUS OF FIRST LADY...
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