If a man be gracious to strangers
it shows that he is a citizen of the world,
and his heart is no island,
cut off from other islands,
but a continent that joins them.
Francis Bacon
Drones Beyond Civil Liberties and Warfare
Detrick provides some interesting insights on a certain level of deregulated airspace access to local law enforcement and certain private-sector operators like from film making and farming. Clearly trespassing within immediate private property airspace without the knowledge or consent of the owner would be an unconstitutional invasion of privacy or (without warrant) search. But smaller drone technologies could facilitate more granular, feasible searches for missing children, hikers, survivors at sea, etc., surveillance for extended property security, etc.
More on the 77-Centers
You know, when feminist ideologues start trying to compare jobs and compensation on purely subjective assessments of "comparable work" (public sector unions also promote similar rubbish), it's not respectable. There are market supply-and-demand considerations underlying specific job compensation. Factors like hours worked, availability during off-peak hours, lifestyle choices (e.g., road warrior), nature of the work (say, working on an offshore platform vs. a desk job) and tenure/experience explain much of a difference; employers have no reason to pay males more than their market worth; any female entrepreneur could easily arbitrage wage differences to establish a competitive advantage. I think somewhere in the discussion a point is made that male business owners make more than female business owners.A casual Google search revealed the following excerpt:
But one question haunted me through the years: If an employer has to pay a man one dollar for the same work a woman would do for [77] cents, why would anyone hire a man? If women do produce more for less, I thought, women who own their own businesses should earn more than male business owners. So I checked. I found that women entrepreneurs earn 50% less than their male counterparts.
It’s not that women are less effective or productive–they just have different priorities. A 2001 survey of business owners with M.B.A.s conducted by the Rochester Institute of Technology found that money was the primary motivator for only 29% of women, versus 76% of men. Women prioritized flexibility, fulfillment, autonomy and safety.I'm not sure I agree with the wording of the first sentence of the second paragraph, because I think jobs and compensation are linked to productivity; I would probably rephrase it as the notion of compensation reflects fungible trade-offs, some involving harder-to-quantity subjective benefits. For example, traditionally lower public sector pay reflected higher job security, not unlike how corporate bonds in the private sector have to pay an interest premium over safe Treasury debt to attract investors. Sometimes compromises are made to accommodate family life; for instance, a promotion might require relocation to a more rural area where the spouse's professional opportunities are more limited; if a husband spends a lot of time traveling away from home, a wife may prefer a more limited job commitment, say, to cope with time demands of parenting (e.g., a child is ill and can't go to school).
I can't help but smile when ideologues start complaining how predominantly male school janitors make more than lunch ladies. Well, you know, we males have been brainwashed by the promotion of stereotypes like strong, virile, bald Mr. Clean. At one stretch during my freshman year, I had to mop floors at 6 AM on an empty stomach and felt like puking on multiple occasions; I got paid the same minimum wage. Would I have preferred ladling slop on the serving line to attractive coeds at a more godly hour? In a heartbeat--even at a lower wage. If lunch ladies would rather earn more money by mopping up after student vomit and cleaning toilets, they should apply to be a janitor. Maybe a lower supply of lunch ladies will drive up their wages, or a higher supply of custodians will drive down the same...
A Notable Camille Paglia Quote About Hillary Clinton
As a registered Democrat, I am praying for a credible presidential candidate to emerge from the younger tier of politicians in their late 40s. A governor with executive experience would be ideal. It’s time to put my baby-boom generation out to pasture! We’ve had our day and managed to muck up a hell of a lot. It remains baffling how anyone would think that Hillary Clinton (born the same year as me) is our party’s best chance. She has more sooty baggage than a 90-car freight train. And what exactly has she ever accomplished — beyond bullishly covering for her philandering husband? She’s certainly busy, busy and ever on the move — with the tunnel-vision workaholism of someone trying to blot out uncomfortable private thoughts.
I for one think it was a very big deal that our ambassador was murdered in Benghazi. In saying “I take responsibility” for it as secretary of state, Hillary should have resigned immediately. The weak response by the Obama administration to that tragedy has given a huge opening to Republicans in the next presidential election. The impression has been amply given that Benghazi was treated as a public relations matter to massage rather than as the major and outrageous attack on the U.S. that it was... As far as I’m concerned, Hillary disqualified herself for the presidency in that fist-pounding moment at a congressional hearing when she said, “What difference does it make what we knew and when we knew it, Senator?”.I'm sure Marty O'Malley must be happy with an implicit endorsement. I wouldn't mind seeing O'Malley buried in a national landslide. I think the Democrats have a bigger problem: they have been running on basically the same platform for 40 years; despite every budgetary weapon the Dems have thrown at the economy, we are 4 years into an "Obama Recovery" with anemic growth rates, the lowest labor participation rate in decades, the highest structured long-term unemployment, all-time high in food stamps, and high levels of low-skill unemployment. (I agree that Bush presided over low growth, but we also achieved record high federal revenues during his second term, and he was bookended by two major asset bubble bursts.)
I think more importantly, the chickens are coming home to roost over corrupt unsustainable deal making with public sector unions and exploding Baby Boomer entitlement costs; Detroit is just an earlier manifestation of things to come. The Dems can no longer promise more and more spending. Especially notable are the unmitigated disaster of ObamaCare and Obama's horrendous track record on civil liberties/domestic spying and interventionist foreign policy, both serious deviations from his rhetoric before entering the White House. In ObamaCare it's not just that Obama is illegally deferring the employer mandate for obviously political reasons, but blown deadlines, waivers, promises about no effects on people's existing insurance, etc., have thoroughly debunked the myth of government competence.
How will the Democrats respond in a world where unpopular program cuts are necessary to save programs and deregulation is needed to restore a measure of necessary economic liberty? Will a brave Democrat emerge to contradict the litmus-test policies over the past decades?
I think Paglia is wrong; it's not the age of the politicians; it's more of an uncritical belief in the efficacy of centralized government. There's only so much longer they can kick unfunded entitlement liabilities down the road, try to sidestep public employment reforms, and maintain globally noncompetitive economic policies.
The Murdered Australian Baseball Player Kerfuffle
The revelation that three "bored" teens of color recently murdered a white baseball player "just for fun" has not escaped my attention. I get the fact that many conservatives want to highlight the hypocrisy of the mainstream media and certain black "leadership" whom have portrayed Trayvon Martin as a victim of "white" Hispanic-on-black crime on the matter. But I wanted briefly respond to a comment made in a Libertarian Republican post:
Most self-described libertarians will remain silent on the killing of the white Australian by three black teenagers because on cultural issues they're just like liberals.No, I'm speaking for myself and not necessarily any other libertarians. I think Chris Lane's murderers should be prosecuted to the fullest extent to the law. When one of the alleged killers tweeted "90% of white ppl are nasty" and "Ayeee I knocced out 5 woods [whites] since Zimmerman court!", there can be little doubt that this was a racially-based crime, a "hate crime" if there ever was one. But I'm more interested in justice in the taking away of Mr. Lane's unalienable right to live, not exacerbating racial tensions, not trying to score political points over an unjustifiable cold-blooded murder. I did not like to see the race card played during the Zimmerman trial, and I don't want to see it played in the upcoming trials of these teens. The vast majority of black people I know would be horrified by what these young men have done. All people of good will mourn the deaths of both Trayvon Martin and Chris Lane.
Political Cartoon
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| Courtesy of Robert Ariail and Townhall |
The Beatles, "Magical Mystery Tour"
