The problem with the global warming debate and our hopes of arriving at anything resembling a cohesive policy is the fact that the whole issue is being framed by the far-left ideologues. And that frame is a binary one. On one hand, you can either be a complete denier. No warming of the temperature anywhere due to human causes what-so-ever. The other end of the spectrum; complete global warming alarmist. The world is going to be massively impacted due to the massive warming caused by human activity. And not only will this impact to our mother earth be massive, but it will be catastrophic to the human race.
There can be no middle ground. There is no room for a moderating voice. Only hot or cold.
California Assembly Bill 889 will require these protections for all “domestic employees,” including nannies, housekeepers and caregivers.
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Under AB 889, household “employers” (aka “parents”) who hire a babysitter on a Friday night will be legally obligated to pay at least minimum wage to any sitter over the age of 18 (unless it is a family member), provide a substitute caregiver every two hours to cover rest and meal breaks, in addition to workers’ compensation coverage, overtime pay, and a meticulously calculated timecard/paycheck.
What kind of special intersection of crazy and powerful could create this law?
I like my talk radio. And I like my North Carolina. That’s why I listen to local talk whenever I can. That means on the way TO work and on the way FROM work I get the local liberal talk. In the morning I get Brad and Britt and the afternoon brings me Allan Handelmman. Today they BOTH got me going.
First Allan.
It’s well know that the Left feels the best way to remove a bias against a particular group is to take society, group them according to characteristics that match the oppressed group and treat them differently than they do the rest of the population. I know, I know, it doesn’t make sense to me either. But, ya know…..
Okay, so, today’s group of people that are being exploited by the evil rich capitalists?
In addition to whatever personal pleasure it gives you, being attractive also helps you earn more money, find a higher-earning spouse (and one who looks better, too!) and get better deals on mortgages. Each of these facts has been demonstrated over the past 20 years by many economists and other researchers. The effects are not small: one study showed that an American worker who was among the bottom one-seventh in looks, as assessed by randomly chosen observers, earned 10 to 15 percent less per year than a similar worker whose looks were assessed in the top one-third — a lifetime difference, in a typical case, of about $230,000.
There ya have it; a clear cut case of discrimination against a certain group of people. And what should we do?
A more radical solution may be needed: why not offer legal protections to the ugly, as we do with racial, ethnic and religious minorities, women and handicapped individuals?
Certainly this is more satire?
We actually already do offer such protections in a few places, including in some jurisdictions in California, and in the District of Columbia, where discriminatory treatment based on looks in hiring, promotions, housing and other areas is prohibited. Ugliness could be protected generally in the United States by small extensions of the Americans With Disabilities Act. Ugly people could be allowed to seek help from the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and other agencies in overcoming the effects of discrimination. We could even have affirmative-action programs for the ugly.
Come on….there is NO way we could do this:
The mechanics of legislating this kind of protection are not as difficult as you might think. You might argue that people can’t be classified by their looks — that beauty is in the eye of the beholder. That aphorism is correct in one sense: if asked who is the most beautiful person in a group of beautiful people, you and I might well have different answers. But when it comes to differentiating classes of attractiveness, we all view beauty similarly: someone whom you consider good-looking will be viewed similarly by most others; someone you consider ugly will be viewed as ugly by most others. In one study, more than half of a group of people were assessed identically by each of two observers using a five-point scale; and very few assessments differed by more than one point.
For purposes of administering a law, we surely could agree on who is truly ugly, perhaps the worst-looking 1 or 2 percent of the population.
Serious?
Economic arguments for protecting the ugly are as strong as those for protecting some groups currently covered by legislation. So why not go ahead and expand protection to the looks-challenged? There’s one legitimate concern. With increasingly tight limits on government resources, expanding rights to yet another protected group would reduce protection for groups that have commanded our legislative and other attention for over 50 years.
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You might reasonably disagree and argue for protecting all deserving groups. Either way, you shouldn’t be surprised to see the United States heading toward this new legal frontier.
I’m sure many generations of fathers have felt this. But I seriously think that my America will have been better than my child’s. As Sean Patrick says:
The untold story is that redistribution of income is, by and large, not designed to help the poor but to preserve social stability on behalf of the rich (or a portion of them). It’s like Guido Calabresi used to tell his students on the first day of classes at Yale. Are you in favor of high taxes? Yes. Are you in favor of high spending? Yes. Do you want to see your seats at Yale redistributed to people with lower test scores? Silence. Aha, he would say, you just want to redistribute other people’s advantages, not your own.
80% of all people who pay no taxes are in favor of raising taxes on those who do pay taxes.
UPDATE:
This is not a scientific poll. I asked 5 people who I didn’t think pay any taxes tonight while having a couple of beers after going to workout* at the Y.
* Where workout = a solid rotation of hot tub, sauna and steam room.
Ask anyone on the street if they would be willing to see the needy get the medical care they need and the answer is a massive “Hell yeah!”. But ask them HOW that is to happen and you get a whole bunch of, “Hell, I da’know.”.
And so’s the quandary of the average American.
And so it is, when faced with work, and love, and school and bills and and and…we are willing, almost demanding, that this burden be taken from us and handled by someone else. The Genesis. The lightning striking the mud.
The government’s credit rating was cut today. For the first time in the history of the planet the United States of America is no longer a sure bet on it’s credit. To be sure, AA+ isn’t nothin to sneeze at, but it’s not, ahem, Money.
S&P cut the long-term U.S. credit rating by one notch to AA-plus on concerns about the government’s budget deficits and rising debt burden. The move is likely to raise borrowing costs eventually for the American government, companies and consumers.
And the why:
“The downgrade reflects our opinion that the fiscal consolidation plan that Congress and the Administration recently agreed to falls short of what, in our view, would be necessary to stabilize the government’s medium-term debt dynamics,” S&P said in a statement.
The deal reached by Congress and signed by the President doesn’t do anything about our fiscal woes. Cries from the Left that we aren’t raising revenue ring hollow as the United States regularly see year over year revenue gains of over 7%; revenue is NOT the trouble.
Spending is the problem.
And the liberal Left will not listen and take action. They continue down the path that somehow someone isn’t paying their fair share yet irresponsibly care to put pen to paper and define what that fair share really is.
What we are seeing now is the natural result of the kind of quasi socialism that exists in the world today.
It seems not so long ago that a mad-man did the unspeakable. He took a gun and fired it. Lots of times. People died and a nation changed, and a dialogue on dialogue began.
It turns out that this global economy has implications. Namely that money is movable and flexible. The other implication is that government is seen as damage and as much as possible people will avoid it; even uber-liberal ones like George Soros.
“It emerged that George Soros is to close his hedge fund to outside investors and will refund $1 billion to those who have put in money. The prominent financier blames new regulations that require investment advisors to register with the SEC.”
“This is an excuse. The budget deficit is an excuse for the Republicans to undermine government plain and simple. They don’t just want to make cuts, they want to destroy. They want to destroy food safety, clean air, clean water, the department of education. They want to destroy your rights.”
Milton Friedman:
The federal government has spent years considering whether to take steps to help keep dangerous strains of E. coli bacteria out of the food supply, a question that has become even more urgent in the face of a deadly wave of E. coli sickness that swept through Europe and raised alarms on both sides of the Atlantic.
Now, two major American companies, Costco Wholesale and Beef Products Inc., have gotten tired of waiting for regulators to act. They are proceeding with their own plans to protect customers.
Last month, Costco, one of the nation’s largest food retailers, quietly began requiring its suppliers of bagged produce, including salad greens and mixes, apple slices and baby carrots, to test for a broad range of toxic E. coli.
“We know this is where we have to go and there’s no reason to wait,” said Craig Wilson, the food safety director of Costco. In the last two weeks, he said, most produce suppliers have added a test that can detect the strain from the European outbreak as well.
The problem with the global warming debate and our hopes of arriving at anything resembling a cohesive policy is the fact that the whole issue is being framed by the far-left ideologues. And that frame is a binary one. On one hand, you can either be a complete denier. No warming of the temperature anywhere due to human causes what-so-ever. The other end of the spectrum; complete global warming alarmist. The world is going to be massively impacted due to the massive warming caused by human activity. And not only will this impact to our mother earth be massive, but it will be catastrophic to the human race.
