Love will find a way.
Indifference will find an excuse.
Author unknown
Government "Investment" of the Day
Ask me what I think of crony Big Sports. From an investment newsletter:
My favorite example about how absurd our debts have become? The state of New Jersey still owes $110 million for a football stadium (Giants Stadium) that was demolished in 2010. It won't retire this debt until 2025.
Similar debts exist on defunct or torn-down stadiums in Houston, Kansas City, Memphis, Seattle, and Pittsburgh. These stadiums are physical reminders of the absurd promises the government has made to its citizens.Even if you demolish it, the invoices still come.
The FDA Cuts the Cheese
I Had a Dream Last Night, Oh Boy
Being I'm doing a Beatles retrospective, the heading is a tweak of a verse to "A Day in the Life". I don't make a practice of writing about dreams, but one Barack Obama made a cameo appearance in this one. Apparently in dreamland my blog attracts enough pageviews to get his attention. He handed me a single sheet of paper with his ideological progressive goals, as if I was going to use my blog to promote his agenda. (He apparently thought he was the one having a dream...)
The Road to Kiddie Serfdom
George Will, "Slipping the Constitutional Leash": THUMBS UP!
George Will likes to draw his readers in by sometimes using a compelling anecdote or story. In this column, Will recalls WWI Iowa Gov. Harding whom issued the Babel Proclamation: "only English was legal in public or private schools, in public conversations, on trains, over the telephone, at all meetings, and in all religious services." Tips on violations of the act (e.g., from telephone operators) resulted in arrests. (It was eventually repealed in late 1918, and SCOTUS in 1923 affirmed lingual choice; oddly enough, Harding had relied on European immigrant support for his election.)
But rationalizations of restrictions on individual liberty are not restricted to foreign wars or a euphemistically named War on Terror; the Congress has for a long time intruded on the police functions of states to combat victimless crimes (remember the ObamaCare distinction between a tax and a penalty?) The federal government used a Trojan horse of its constitutional (e.g., tax) authority in its stealth assault on the principle of federalism: Will quotes the prescient former President and SCOTUS Chief Justice William Taft: "To give such magic to the word ‘tax’ would be to break down all constitutional limitation of the powers of Congress and completely wipe out the sovereignty of the states."
Will references an excellent essay "Sex, Drugs, Alcohol, Gambling, and Guns: The Synergistic Constitutional Effects" by Kopel and Burris, which shows SCOTUS granting ever more discretion to the Congress over responsibilities at the expense of and traditionally reserved to the states under the Tenth Amendment. And he reminds conservatives whom champion federal intervention to prosecute victimless crimes that they are philosophically inconsistent on claiming limits of government in other areas.
A RINO's Attack On Exceptions to the Minimum Wage
This blog advocates repeal of minimum wage legislation; wage floors arbitrarily restrict work opportunities especially for low-skill/less experienced/younger workers. Job experience often makes workers more productive and valuable to employers.
Congressman Harper (R-MS) is sponsoring legislation which would essentially gut section 14 (c), which carves out an exception for disabled workers, whom may perform job-related tasks at a slower, less productive pace, making them noncompetitive compared to more able applicants. Nonprofits often deploy time studies of disabled workers in setting wages; some disabled workers do well enough on time studies to be paid at the federal minimum wage or above. Whereas I don't question Harper's heart, he is advocating bad public policy with perverse unintended consequences: his fix would end up making it all but impossible for many, if not most disabled workers to find work at any wage. For many disabled workers, it's more than wages; having a job can contribute to a person's sense of self-worth, it can enrich one's social interactions, etc.
Political Cartoon
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| Courtesy of Bob Gorrell and Townhall |
The Beatles, "She Loves You". To me, this will always be the Beatles' signature hit song; I can still remember as a little kid singing along "yeah, yeah, yeah" through a box fan--my inner record producer thought it sounded cool. I really, really love the "red album" love song stuff. After Sgt. Pepper, although all the singles were great, I didn't care as much for drug-influenced, darker, more indulgent tracks. I personally would have preferred the periodic respite of a "silly love song" during the contentious protest period through the early 70's. Maybe that's why Harrison's "Something" appealed to me the most during the "blue album" period. And it was like radio stations except for maybe some oldie stations almost never played the older material. I remember buying the red album while at UT and didn't recognize most of the song titles--but instantly recognized the songs when I first played them, which I hadn't heard in years: the Beatles did that song? If I was marooned on a deserted island and could bring only one album with me--the red album, hands down.
