Showing posts with label union. Show all posts
Showing posts with label union. Show all posts

Wednesday, July 27, 2011

Beermageddon coming to Ohio

As if Ohio didn't have enough union problems, what with Governor Kasich's bold reforms aimed at curbing the burgeoning budget and the ensuing protests, complete with a referendum repeal effort that gained enough signatures to earn a place on the November ballot.


sb5.jpg
Marvin Fong - The Plain Dealer


Now we learn that the Teamster's union is threatening to cut off Ohio's beer supply in the midst of the hottest Ohio summer in recent memory.  PR Newswire reports:
"More than 300 delivery drivers and warehouse workers employed by Heidelberg Distributing throughout Ohio put up informational pickets at key distribution facilities around the state today to warn the company and the public of labor problems that could cut off Ohio's supply to beer and wine products during the busy summer season."
What this means is that it is conceivable that Ohioans could have to tough it out through all those miserable, interminable political commercials without the benefit of their favorite alcoholic beverage.  And they may have to cast their votes without the comfort of their favorite brew.  And how will they ever drown their sorrows if their side loses?  

And perhaps most troubling is the stress this may cause in the Ohio legislature when the Teamsters are unable or unwilling to stock the full service bar in the Statehouse.  Bad things are likely to happen, such as lawmakers crossing state lines to drink and drive


As for me and my house, we may feel slightly inconvenienced if our supplies of IBC Root Beer and Monster energy drinks are cut off.  There are some benefits to being teetotalers. 


Aside from that,  this may turn out to be an early Christmas present for Kasich and Co.  Unions holding citizens' favorite beverages hostage during this blistering summer in the months leading up to a critical union referendum doesn't seem to be a brilliant strategy.   









Thursday, April 21, 2011

April 21, 2011

Abortion opponents are on the offensive and the pro-abortion crowd is getting nervous:
"Opponents and supporters of abortion appear to have taken the position that Roe v. Wade is no longer the law of the land. 
Since the start of this year, 916 measures seeking to regulate reproductive health have been introduced in 49 states. According to the Guttmacher Institute, by the end of March, 15 laws had been enacted in seven states."
The strategy of chipping away at Roe v. Wade appears to be working:
"Gone are the days in which legislatures at least attempted to ensure state regulations conformed to the broadest interpretation of the Roe constraints. The new game lies in expressly violating Roe and Casey, at the state level, in the hopes of either forcing the issue at the Supreme Court or making abortion unobtainable as a matter of fact. Either way, abortion opponents believe they will win—and here pro-abortion rights groups may actually agree."
Terry O'Neill, president of the National Organization for [liberal] Women even thinks the chipping away has led to a de facto overturning of Roe:
 "[T]he fear that Justice Samuel Alito would vote to overturn Roe is so deep that reproductive rights groups may be opting to leave the state bans in place. And, as she conceded in that interview, wherever unconstitutional state abortion bans go unchallenged, they become law."
D.A. Kolodenko wrote:
 "This is a dangerous Catch-22. In order to keep in place the existing federal law protecting a woman's right to choose, pro-choice organizations are limited in what they can do about the spate of new anti-abortion laws being passed in states dominated by anti-choice conservatives. What we're witnessing is a stealth campaign to make an abortion illegal or as difficult to obtain as possible in as many states as possible, and it's working."
It's working.  This is why states must continue to enact laws to protect the unborn, including Ohio's Heartbeat Bill, which would ban abortion after a fetal heartbeat is detected.  Ohio Right to Life says the bill would violate Roe v. Wade and therefore would be struck down by the Supreme Court.  Terry O'Neill from NOW disagrees. 

~~~~~



The College Republicans at University of California - Mercid tried to get their fellow students to sign a petition asking the university to redistribute G.P.A.'s.  After all,  most of these students believe the government should tax the rich more, so it's only right that the top students should "share" their G.P.A.'s with students who are less fortunate...those who come from disadvantaged backgrounds or who have to work part-time to pay for school.

Not so much....


~~~~~

"Madison — Law enforcement agencies ran up more than $3.27 million in pay, overtime, mileage, food and hotels while providing security during weeks of protests at the state Capitol, according to preliminary numbers compiled by the Journal Sentinel."
"For many days on end, there were hundreds of law enforcement officers on duty inside and outside the building. The cost of policing is already in the millions of dollars....
...The spokeswoman provided some details on two contracts. One involved a contract worth as much as $2 million to provide miscellaneous services, including food, to county and municipal law enforcement and support staff.
That contract called for providing ear buds for officers' radios because of all the noise inside the Capitol. Also, a health-care provider was brought in for on-site health checks for officers who worked long periods of time.
The second contract was with a private security agency to provide security for the parking lots where police officers parked their vehicles while they were at the Capitol. That contract was worth as much as $98,784."

Protesting Teachers Cost WI Taxpayers $3 Million a Day | MacIver Institute
The chart below represents about a third of the districts that closed.

 

~~~~~

“Nobody likes to see those kinds of things [...] even though it was done professionally according to the protocols,” she said. “But, what TSA is doing is reexamining those protocols all the time. It’s all in relation to threat – what is the threat? And one of the things we do see is if you categorically remove a group from any type of screening, well those who seek to do us harm will then exploit that group. So you have to be very careful on how you do it.”
Napolitano said they are working on identifying frequent travelers as well as biometric cards to streamline the airport screening process.  Apparently, in Janet's world, those people would not possibly fall into her hypothetical group of "those who seek to do us harm [and] will then exploit that group." But the 6-year-old blond girl on her way to Disneyland....let's just say the parents had better not leave her unattended or allow another traveler to carry her while in the airport lest someone call the bomb squad. 

Wednesday, April 20, 2011

April 20, 2011

We hear very little about international law in the U.S. these days, but we need to take a good look at what's happening in Europe and learn from it.  There are many in this country who would have us sign on to any and every treaty, agreement, and convention set forth by the U.N. and other intentional agencies.  The end-game is ultimately, a loss of our national sovereignty 


Will Britain Defy the European Court of Human Rights?


 "In a blatant attempt to overrule Britain’s Parliament, judges at the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) ruled on April 12 that Britain must reverse its 140-year-old ban on prisoners voting. The ruling is leading to a showdown between the British government and the echr over who really runs the country. The court gave Britain six months to change its voting laws. This comes two months after members of Parliament voted not to remove the ban—234 votes to 22...
...Britain’s Daily Mail reports that backbench Conservative MPs are pushing for the government to simply ignore the court’s ruling. A leaked government document says the court has no legal powers to force the government to pay compensation to prisoners denied a vote. Other countries have ignored 8,000 ECHR rulings...
...The ECHR is a thorn in Britain’s side. Analyst Dr. Lee Rotherham estimates that Britain spends around £2.1 billion [around $3.4 billion U.S.] a year complying with ECHR judgements—with a total cost to date of £17.3 billion [$28.3 billion U.S.]. He also estimates that the “compensation culture” fostered by the courts costs a further £7.1 billion a year [$11.6 billion U.S.]. That comes to just under £150 [$245 U.S.] per person in the UK per year...
...But perhaps the bigger cost is Britain having to comply with absurd ECHR rulings. Even soldiers on the battlefield have to change their behavior because of the court. For example, soldiers are told not to fire on an insurgent after he has thrown a hand grenade. They can shoot him before that point, but once he has thrown it, he is unarmed and must not be shot."


~~~~~

"These protesters at the Madison, Wisconsin Tea Party Protest featuring Andrew Breitbart and Sarah Palin unleashed a furious message in the following video. Unfortunately, we have absolutely no idea what this message means…

I've watched this several times and I can't stop laughing at it!

~~~~~

And then we have the Public School Employees of Washington and the SEIU staging a flash mob at a Target store. And a very unfortunate-looking flash mob it is.  In fact, I've been forever scarred by it.  Do they really think the average shopper at Target is standing in solidarity with the SEIU, considering that unionization of stores like Target and Walmart would necessarily  raise prices?  There's a reason these shoppers are purchasing the Isaac Mizrahi brand at Target rather than Versace on Rodeo Drive.  Message to SEIU:  Target shoppers WANT Target to succeed and stay open and keep their prices low.   

By the way, note that these union members arrived by SCHOOL BUS. 



~~~~~
Many people have seen the video of a 6-year-old girl being fondled by TSA agents in an airport.  The uniformed agent runs her fingers through the little girl's hair, up and down her legs and back side, and sticks her hands inside her pants to search for contraband:


The little girl's mother has asked how she is supposed to teach her daughter about strangers and inappropriate touch when a uniformed stranger is permitted to manhandle her on demand in an airport. 

Slightly less offensive, but nonetheless troubling this week, was the frisking of  Phil Johnson, of  Pyromaniacs blog fame.  For those who aren't acquainted with Phil Johnson,  he's the Executive Director of Grace to You,  John MacArthur's radio ministry, and edits MacArthur's books.  Author and  Johnson's Team Pyro blog-mate Dan Philips expressed his outrage that this fine man who poses absolutely no threat to airline travelers would be subjected to the groping hands of TSA "handlers."  He shared a copy of Phil's TSA complaint form. Disgusting.  Johnson said, 
"After having to wait fully 10 minutes for an agent, the "patdown" (more like a rubdown) he gave me was unnecessarily invasive.  He put virtually his whole hand into my waistband. And he lingered far too long when he reached the crotch area. "
Because the agent (who was already wearing gloves when he first approached Johnson) found something on the swab he ran over the gloves, Johnson was taken to a private room for another "enhanced patdown."
"His patdown was not as invasive as Agent #1; he didn't reach as far into my waistband as the first guy did (and he made a point of putting on fresh gloves); but I still thought his fondling of my private parts was unnecessarily "personal," and he gave me the distinct impression he enjoyed it."

Phillips summarize his feelings:
 "Let me put it to you: Phil is not a private, unknown quantity. There is zero percent chance that he poses a threat to national security or anything the TSA is supposed to care about. Yet he is singled out for this sort of punishing sexual molestation. Do you feel safer now? As you tuck your children in tonight, are you comforted by the thought that folks like Phil (and housewives and children and your wife and grandmother) are being felt-up for no rational reason, with the State's smiling approval?"

Well, have no fear my dear fellow citizens!  The TSA has responded to the plight of this poor six-year-old girl and the outrage it has sparked around the world.  In a blog post last week the official blogger of the TSA said, 
"A video taken of one of our officers patting down a six year-old has attracted quite a bit of attention. Some folks are asking if the proper procedures were followed. Yes. TSA has reviewed the incident and the security officer in the video followed the current standard operating procedures."
That's right...our government says it's completely appropriate for uniformed government agents to stick their hands down the pants of little girls who have done nothing wrong. 

This TSA blog is a story in itself.   When I first started reading I thought it was satire.  Surely our government would not have a blog post titled "TSA Space Alien Detection Officers," right?  Wrong!
"New intelligence suggests that space aliens with invisibility cloaks have been going through our checkpoints for years. We know they’ve been observing flight operations at some of our busiest airports, but we had no idea they were coming in.
It’s not entirely clear what their intentions are, but they need to be screened just like anybody else. We don’t mind space aliens visiting our airports. In fact we think it’s kind of cool. However, they need to go through security just like everybody else."
OK, haha, April Fool's! This is the TSA blog that has an official .gov address and is linked directly from the front page of the official TSA website.  Not only is something like this  in  unprofessional and in very poor taste, it also undermines the credibility of an agency that already has lost a great deal of respect in the eyes of the American people.  As I said, I thought it was a satirical site and didn't take it seriously.  I actually took several extra steps to verify this was a legitimate TSA-sponsored blog.  You can't make this stuff up.  


Another disturbing aspect of this whole issue with the TSA and the patdowns is we can be certain that a percentage of the "patters" are looking at pornography in their spare time:


TSA Officer Admits Plot to Post Porn on Christian Site – Patriot Update
"On April 10, Bob Seashols, a Coordination Center Officer for the Transportation and Security Administration (TSA) at the Richmond International Airport (RIC) and an administrator for Atheists United’s Facebook page, took part in a coordinated effort to populate pornographic images, extreme profanity, and sexually explicit anti-Christian hate-speech on the Facebook page of Ken Ham, an internationally known Christian ministry leader who serves as president of Answers in Genesis-U.S (AiG) and the popular Creation Museum, located near Cincinnati, Ohio.
Sunday afternoon visitors to Mr. Ham’s “public person” Facebook site found pages of sexually explicit commentary aimed at mocking him and deriding Jesus Christ and the Christian faith. The Internet-based Facebook assault, directed from four different Facebook accounts, involved pornographic and sadomasochistic imagery."
We know that anyone with a cell phone with internet access is only a few clicks away from the most vile, violent, disgusting  pornography, including child pornography.  Pornographers rake in billions of dollars in revenues every year because it's such a popular pastime.   And some of their customers are touching our grandmothers and our little girls and boys. 

Monday, April 11, 2011

Poll: Faith community against OH union/budget reforms. Not so fast!

The headline is an attention getter:
"New Poll and Petition: Ohioans of Faith Reject Gov. Kasich's Unfair Budget Proposal, Attacks on Workers"
This started appearing on Twitter feeds and Facebook pages last week and so it must be a fact, right?  If it's on Twitter, it's true.


The headline actually originated from the group Faith in Public Life (FPL), which is run by a collection of social justice gurus, community organizers, and bloggers who 'enjoy writing about the "religious right."'  Their board includes senior fellows at the leftist Center for American Progress. They tout as one of their big successes setting the 2008 post-election narrative and debunking "the false spin of the single issue “values voter.”  In other words, they want to re-frame the Christian voter as a social justice/community organizer/Democrat.  They don't like that there are sincere Christians who are genuinely against abortion and who have deeply-held beliefs in the importance of traditional marriage. These are deal-breakers,  meaning they could never in good-conscience vote for a pro-abortion candidate, whatever their party.  Never mind, FPL marches on, trying to convince the world that this is not true and that Christians are becoming Leftists at a dizzying rate.  That's their mission. 


It is in that context we take a look at their poll, taken March 25-27, surveying 2000 registered Ohio voters.  The group's press release concluded: 
"A new survey of 2,000 Ohio registered voters, commissioned by Faith in Public Life and conducted by Public Policy Polling, finds that Catholics and evangelical/born-again Christians in the battleground state of Ohio overwhelmingly reject restrictions on collective bargaining, as well as Governor Kasich's proposed budget that cuts spending on vital public services while preserving corporate tax loopholes and low tax rates for the wealthiest residents of the state."
  •  Sixty-one percent of Ohio registered voters think restricting collective bargaining is the wrong thing to do, as do 57% of Catholic and 59% of evangelical/born-again Christian registered voters.
  • Fifty-seven percent of evangelical/born-again Christians said 'to help make sure that citizens have a quality education and safe and healthy communities, even if it requires raising taxes on businesses and people with the highest incomes' is a more important moral responsibility for government than 'to cut taxes for all, including the wealthiest people and large businesses, even if it requires cutting education and other public services.


Wait....what?  Re-read that last bullet point.  Does it even make any sense?  It sounds like it was written by someone who does not have a good grasp of the English language.  

This is the problem with polls and surveys: they're only as good as the questions. Some questions are just poorly written and others are intentionally written to solicit pre-determined answers.  


Creative Research Systems gives guidelines for creating non-biased survey questions:
"The overriding consideration in questionnaire design is to make sure your questions can accurately tell you what you want to learn. The way you phrase a question can change the answers you get. Try to make sure the wording does not favor one answer choice over another.
Avoid emotionally charged words or leading questions that point towards a certain answer. You will get different answers from asking 'What do you think of the XYZ proposal?' than from 'What do you think of the Republican XYZ proposal?' The word 'Republican' in the second question would cause some people to favor or oppose the proposal based on their feelings about Republicans, rather than about the proposal itself."
Here are a couple of the actual questions asked by the Faith in Public Life (FPL) survey:
  • You may have heard about Governor Kasich’s plan to address budget shortfalls, which involves cutting education and health care. Do you think Gov. Kasich's plan is a fair approach or an unfair approach to balancing the budget?
This was the second question in the survey.  Immediately we see the question is directing the person being interviewed toward a negative response.  It reduces and oversimplifies the debate and pits the budget shortfall against the emotionally charged issues of education and health care.  Then it asks if this is "fair."  The third question is:
  • What do you think is a more important moral responsibility for our state government: to help make sure that citizens have a quality education and safe and healthy communities, even if it requires raising taxes on businesses and people with the highest incomes, OR to cut taxes for all, including the wealthiest people and large businesses, even if it requires cutting education and other public services?
Try reading that question out loud and imagining you heard it over the phone.  What are the chances you'd even understand what the caller was asking you?  There are so many odd grammatical constructs and run-on sentences that the listener would be hard-pressed to figure out how to answer, even if he or she had a strong opinion on the issue. In addition, again, it distorts the issue, as if the state can either cut taxes for the wealthiest people or have healthy communities.   Is it really accurate to assert (in a survey question, no less)  that our communities will become unhealthy if Governor Kasich's budget passes?  And to further assert approving of this budget would be immoral?  It's a fine example of the false dilemma fallacy, but it's a very poorly written survey question.  It's clear there is an agenda, designed to elicit a pre-determined outcome. 

Here's a video that demonstrates how easy it is to skew survey questions to attain a desired outcome:



Incidentally, we also find in the fine print of the survey that out of the 2000 registered Ohio voters that 45% were Democrats, 30% were Republicans and 25% were "independent or identified with another party."  I'm no expert, but I suspect that when you survey a majority of Democrats, you're going to get Democrat-leaning answers.  


As for the seemingly overwhelming number of Christians/Evangelicals supposedly opposed to Gov. Kasich's budget and union reforms?  Aside from an agenda that's clear in the questions, which seem designed to solicit certain answers,  I think many of us will agree with the great philosopher, Inigo Montoya:
"You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means."
I was privileged to hear Dr. David Noebel from Summit Ministries  speak on Saturday and he said:  

"The vast majority of Bible believing Christians have no idea what a Biblical worldview really is."
He noted that 28% of so-called Evangelical Christians voted for President Obama and probably would do so again.  


Let's start to turn this around by not taking surveys like this one at face value.  Faith in Public Life's mission is to "shape the public debate." One of their best propaganda tools is a survey that makes it appear that all or most Christians/Catholics/Evangelicals are in agreement with their agenda.  Don't buy it.  









Wednesday, March 16, 2011

Sprint and the Beauty of Competition and the Free Market

Last night we finally gave up waiting for our family's cell phones to auto-update for daylight savings time and I made the call to Sprint customer service.  After waiting through the obligatory "Para Espanol, marque cinco" and several other prompts, I was directed to a very nice man who noted I was a "Premier Customer" and indicated that he would be especially enthusiastic about resolving my issue.  


After I explained my problem to him and he offered a solution that he was not sure would work, he let me know that I would be receiving a survey about his customer service by e-mail.  He asked me if I would be comfortable answering that yes, he had resolved my issues.  "Yeah....I guess," I mumbled, not quite willing to commit, not knowing yet if my problem was going to be resolved, yet knowing he had been polite and seemed to be trying his best to fix my problem.  "Ma'am....I can see you are hesitant about answering "yes."  Is there anything I can do to help you that would make you more likely to answer "yes" to the survey question?"  I told him that I understood there was nothing else he could do at this point and that I felt he had done his best.  He seemed mostly satisfied with this answer, but reminded me he would be sending me an e-mail with further information and that I should feel free to e-mail him if I had further questions or needed any more help.  We said, "I love you" and "goodnight" and hung up.  OK, that last part didn't happen, but you get the idea.


Before I go on, I have to say that I have had some completely lousy service from Sprint.  I feel like I have wasted entire days of my life on the phone with inept customer service reps in foreign countries who did not have a good grasp of the English language.  However, almost to a person, they have been almost desperate to do whatever it took to keep me as a customer and get a good rating on their surveys.  They've offered me free minutes, discounts on my bill, and even gave us an Airrave when I let them know we were thinking about taking our business (with our four phones) elsewhere because we had such a poor signal at our house. 


This is what happens when the free market and competition are at work - people work harder and give better service.  Contrast this to step-increases or seniority pay, where there is little incentive to improve one's performance or go above and beyond the minimum requirements.  Certainly, there are decent people whose work ethics propel them to give excellent service, whether or not there is an incentive, but the majority of employees will work harder and give better service when their pay and promotions depend upon it.  It's clear that these Sprint employees are rewarded for good reviews from customers.  An ad for a Sprint call center representative says:

  • Starting base pay rate is $10.38 - $12.99 per hour ($21,600 - $27,000 per year), plus commission.  Pay is based on related customer service experience.
  • Commission is based on meeting goals for customer retention and selling products and services. Individuals meeting their goals can earn up to $3,000 per month in incentives, in addition to the base pay.


Prices and innovation are also affected by competition. I grew up in Ohio in the 70's where you could use any phone service provider you wanted, as long as it was Ohio Bell, which was in cahoots with long distance provider AT & T.  At that time, Ohio Bell had a monopoly on phone services and equipment in Ohio.  You rented your phone from Ohio Bell when you ordered your service.  If you wanted an extension in another room, you paid extra for it.  If you wanted to upgrade from a rotary to a push-button phone,  you had to pay an extra monthly charge.  Mechanically inclined customers knew the tricks to disabling the ringers on the extra lines so the phone company didn't know you had an extension.  Don't ask me how I know this.  And our younger friends might not realize that all of our phones were tethered to the wall.  We had an extra long cord that would stretch halfway around the house and out onto the back patio, but even that would only get you about twenty feet, max.  Some families, to save money, had a "party line."  This meant that you shared a line with a neighbor - it worked like an extension.   My friend across the street had a party line and I always thought there was something exciting and mysterious about picking up the phone and hearing the voice of the neighbor across the gully.


If you wanted to call long-distance, everyone knew that you called on Sunday nights after 8:00 p.m. because the rates were cheaper.  In 1970, the price of a 3-minute (unassisted!) call was 70 cents on Sundays.  Adjusted for inflation, that would be $3.82 in 2009 dollars.  When I was away at college,  I was allowed to call home once a week, on Sunday nights.  All the girls in my dorm would line up at our floor's only pay phone to call their parents.  Because most of us didn't have ten dollars or so in change to plunk into the pay phone, we called collect.  Our family had a "code."  I would call the operator and ask to make a collect call to my parents. The operator would get my parents on the phone (as I listened in) and they would refuse to accept the charges.  The operator would apologetically inform me that my parents refused to take my call and after hanging up, my parents would call me back on the pay phone.  Of course, for this system to work, my parents would have to be at home, waiting for my call. We'd talk fast because it would cost over $10.00 to make a 30 minute call.  My parents liked me well enough, but they just wanted to know I was alive and that the 1976 Ford Maverick was still running.  This was the world before the deregulation of the telephone monopolies. 


A lawsuit in 1982 ultimately resulted in splitting the Bell companies from AT & T and began the process of  breaking up the government-supported phone company monopolies. This opened the door to lower prices for consumers and paved the way for innovation we couldn't begin to imagine in 1984. 


While it's still not a completely free market (take a look at your phone bill sometime and see all the state and federal regulatory fees),  it's a vastly different world than 1982, when I started college.  My son started his freshman year at Hillsdale College this fall and he carries a cell phone everywhere he goes.  In fact, everyone in our family does.  Long distance is included in our plan so we can call anytime and talk for as long as we want.  Of course, we all know that actually talking on the phone is so 1982!  Most days, the best I can hope for is a text or a  Facebook message from my busy son, but still, if he wanted to call home and chat for two hours, we wouldn't have to take out a second mortgage on the house!  
  
In addition to cell phones, there is, of course, e-mail, and a magical thing called Skype, where  I can have a live video chat with my son using the little spy camera that came pre-installed on my Google Chrome OS Notebook computer.   I can look into his eyes and see how clean his dorm room is (or not). The other night, my friend, whose son is also a college freshman, was able to "watch" him online via his cell phone's GPS tracking feature as he traveled back to school across several states.  Don't judge her. We still worry about our boys!  If not for the deregulation in the 80's, we might still be tethered to the walls rather than enjoying the fruits of the technological boom that was unleashed in the aftermath. 


The bottom line is that competition tends to make things better.  We need competition in education, healthcare, and technology. None of these areas are properly the domain of the federal government.  As we saw with the phone companies,  when the government stopped playing favorites and got out of the way, amazing things happened. 



Monday, March 14, 2011

March 14, 2010

China wants 'one-child' compensation over NZ quake - Yaho News
"A Chinese official said Monday that New Zealand should consider special compensation to parents of Chinese students killed in an earthquake last month because their loss was magnified under the country's one-child policySeven students from China have been identified among the 166 confirmed deaths in the quake that devastated Christchurch city on Feb. 22, and as many as 20 others are still missing.
Chinese Embassy official Cheng Lei said Monday that Chinese quake victims had lost not just their only child, but also a future breadwinner. He said New Zealand should consider providing additional financial assistance to those families."You can expect how lonely, how desperate they are ... not only from losing loved ones, but losing almost entirely the major source of economic assistance after retirement," Cheng told Radio New Zealand."


Perhaps, since China's child-killing program is at the root of this problem, the Chinese government should pay up instead of foisting it off on New Zealand, which does not require genocide of every child after the first born.


The Case For Life - Mike Adams - Town Hall
Mike Adams gives us a list of questions for those who would destroy innocent life in the name of "choice."  Some are better than others, but overall, it makes you realize what poor arguments the pro-abortion side has. Here are some of my favorite questions from Adams:
  • Some people have bumper stickers saying “Don’t like Abortion? Don’t Have One?" Does that sound like a well-reasoned argument?
  • Some people have proposed bumper stickers saying “Don’t like Slavery? Don’t Own One.” Does that sound like a well-reasoned argument?
  • If there are no absolute truths, are abortion rights absolute?
  • My opposition to those who bomb abortion clinics is rooted in my religious views. Should I impose those views on others by supporting laws against bombing abortion clinics?
  • Should we criminally prosecute women who drink and smoke during pregnancy?
  • Should the intention to abort a baby be allowed as a defense to the crime of smoking or drinking during pregnancy?
  • Imagine that a woman is headed to the hospital to have an abortion. Her car is hit by a man who ran a stop light in his car. Her offspring is killed. In most states, he can be charged with homicide. Does that make sense to you?
  • In the previous example, I forgot to add that the man who hit the woman headed to the hospital just happened to be her doctor – the one scheduled to perform the abortion. In most states, he can still be charged with homicide. Does that still make sense?
  • In 1961, there were 210,000 abortions performed in America. Within seven years of Roe v. Wade, there were 1.2 million abortions in America. Have we succeeded in making abortions safe, legal and, rare?
  • Do human beings have a right to commit murder in a safe way?
  • Should we legalize bank robbery to make it safer for bank robbers?
  • When women say “My body, my choice” are they aware of the fact that the unborn baby already has its own DNA?
  • When a suspect’s DNA is found at a murder scene is it permissible to arrest his mother? Or has she been ruled out as the murderer because she has different DNA?




Neal Boortz has a message for the college students he saw protesting collective bargaining reforms in Wisconsin...
"OK … now for the college students. Surely you saw them at the protests last week. For the most part their more cogent moments were spent standing in the Wisconsin Capital waving their fists in the air and screaming “Shame! Shame! Shame!” Now you gotta love a bunch of college students yelling “shame.” The benefits of higher education on display. Shame? Just how much under-age drinking, bong hits and Gawd-knows-what-else went on in Madison the night before?...Tell you what: When you’ve like been away from your mommies for a while; when you’ve shown that you can handle the rigors of academia … and, most important, when you’ve actually like spent some time on your own like earning your own living, taking care of your own needs, filing out your own tax forms, and living free of the parental and academic umbilical cord … then maybe we’ll be willing to listen to something you have to say. Until then, please like spare us the spectacle of your moronic moral exhibitionism. Simply put, you don’t have a clue. You know it, and we know it. We also know that your participation in these protests is seen by you as some sort of a like right of passage. Maybe you should try passing some classes instead of passing your ignorance off to the taxpayers who are shouldering the cost for a huge part of whatever education you will actually receive before the harsh, cold winds of reality hit you right in the face."


He has a point, I think.  He also notes, 
"...let me remind you that this whole stink wasn’t really about collective bargaining rights. [It] was [about] ...the end of the union’s ability to have dues deducted from member’s paychecks rather than relying on the members to pay those dues voluntarily. Some surveys have shown that over 50% of government union members would stop paying their dues if they had to actually write their own checks. Some of these union members pay more than $1000 a year? Big money. Think about this: When 50% of union members stop paying their dues this means a lot less money in the pot to pay union leaders. Not only that … it means much less money for union leaders to donate to political parties. Last year about 46% of union members in Wisconsin voted Republican, yet the government worker unions sent 93% of all union campaign contributions to Democrats. Maybe those union members might want to stop paying dues if the contributions are going to go to a political party they don’t support."


Expert Warns of Health Risks Associated With New Light Bulbs - CNS News
"Appearing before the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, Howard M. Brandston spoke in favor of the "Better Use of Light Bulbs Act" – a measure which would overturn elements of a 2007 law mandating that traditional incandescent light bulbs be phased out over the next few years...."...The compact fluorescent lamp contains mercury,” said Brandston. “One gram of mercury will pollute a two acre pond. This 2007 light bulb standard brings a deadly poison into every residence in our nation.“We do not have enough knowledge of the potential consequences of being continuously exposed to the electromagnetic field that compact florescent lamps emit. There are millions of people in this country with lupus, an auto-immune disease.  Exposure to low doses of light from these lamps causes a severe rash.”

"Sen. James Risch (R-Idaho) expressed similar concerns, during his questioning of the panel.“Has anybody looked at the EPA recommendations put out in January 25, 2011 about what you do if one of these mercury light bulbs break in your home?” Risch asked. In Idaho, we’ve had a number of instances where they’ve had a mercury spill in a science laboratory -- or something in the laboratory in the school -- and they immediately closed the school down for, I don’t know, a number of days while they cleaned it up,” he pointed out.Can you imagine mercury bulbs throughout a school?  I mean, any time a kid wants a day off he’s going to break a mercury light bulb and that’s going to shut that school down -- and if they don’t they’re going to have trouble with the EPA, according to what has to happen to clean it up,” Risch added."
So I'm wondering what would happen if someone (hypothetically, or course) brought one of these mercury bulbs as "Exhibit A" to a senate hearing and accidentally dropped the thing, smashing it right there in the U.S. Capitol.  Imagine the chaos that would ensue if  they had to follow the steps the EPA recommends for cleaning up a broken bulb? [if you prefer, you can download the 3-page detailed PDF]

Before Cleanup

  • Have people and pets leave the room, and avoid the breakage area on the way out [So first, they'd have to evacuate the Capitol]
  • Open a window or door to the outdoors and leave the room for 5-10 minutes [Are there even any windows that can be opened in the Capitol? OK, so we've evacuated the building - hundreds, maybe thousands of people - and we've got the doors and windows (if there are any) open]
  • Shut off the central forced-air heating/air conditioning (HVAC) system, if you have one [Let's hope it's not one of those 90 degree August days in D.C.!]
  • Collect materials you will need to clean up the broken bulb: [I'm assuming we'll need some new government department to deal with this, right? Or will the D.C. HAZMAT team be in charge of this?]
  • Stiff paper or cardboard


  • Sticky tape (e.g., duct tape)


  • Damp paper towels or disposable wet wipes (for hard surfaces)


  • Glass jar with a metal lid (such as a canning jar) or a sealable plastic bag(s)


Cleanup Steps for Carpeting or Rugs

  • Carefully scoop up glass fragments and powder using stiff paper or cardboard and place debris and paper/cardboard in a glass jar with a metal lid. If a glass jar is not available, use a sealable plastic bag. (NOTE: Since a plastic bag will not prevent the mercury vapor from escaping, remove the plastic bag(s) from the home after cleanup.)
  • Use sticky tape, such as duct tape, to pick up any remaining small glass fragments and powder. Place the used tape in the glass jar or plastic bag.
  • Vacuuming of carpeting or rugs during cleanup is not recommended unless broken glass remains after all other cleanup steps have been taken. [NOTE: It is possible that vacuuming could spread mercury-containing powder or mercury vapor, although available information on this problem is limited.] If vacuuming is needed to ensure removal of all broken glass, keep the following tips in mind:
  • Keep a window or door to the outdoors open; [ Oh, that window thingy again!]
 
  • Vacuum the area where the bulb was broken using the vacuum hose, if available, and
 
  • Remove the vacuum bag (or empty and wipe the canister) and seal the bag/vacuum debris, and any materials used to clean the vacuum, in a plastic bag. [Wait wait, WAIT! Didn't they just say NOT to vacuum? This is getting confusing! Hopefully that National Park Service or Secret Service detail will know what to do!]

    • Promptly place all bulb debris and cleanup materials, including vacuum cleaner bags, outdoors in a trash container or protected area until materials can be disposed of properly.  [Will there be a special guard detail to keep this safe?]
    • Check with your local or state government about disposal requirements in your area. Some states and communities require fluorescent bulbs (broken or unbroken) be taken to a local recycling center.

    • Wash your hands with soap and water after disposing of the jars or plastic bags containing bulb debris and cleanup materials.
    • Continue to air out the room where the bulb was broken and leave the H&AC system shut off, as practical, for several hours [So the Capitol will be shut down for SEVERAL HOURS while the HVAC system is shut off]
    Future Cleaning of Carpeting or Rugs: Air Out the Room During and After Vacuuming

    • The next several times you vacuum the rug or carpet, shut off the H&AC system if you have one, close the doors to other rooms, and open a window or door to the outside before vacuuming. Change the vacuum bag after each use in this area.  [The window - always the window. So now, for the next several times they vacuum the Capitol, they're going to have to shut off the HVAC and clear the place out]
    • After vacuuming is completed, keep the H&AC system shut off and the window or door to the outside open, as practical, for several hours [Lather, rinse, repeat...for ONE LOUSY LIGHTBULB!!] 
    I'm thinking this could be a good source of income for some enterprising adrenaline junkie with a HAZMAT suit! 

    The Glenn Beck show demonstrates what this looks like in real life:



    Tuesday, March 1, 2011

    February 28, 2011

    Why aren't we on strike?  Wayne Allyn Root - The Daily Caller
    "Private-sector workers should be the ones striking in the streets of Wisconsin. They’re the ones who have to support government workers’ bloated salaries and pensions. But private-sector workers can’t afford to take a day off, let alone a week. Doesn’t that say everything? Only government employees, with their powerful unions, lifetime job security, short workweeks, loads of sick days, nonstop holidays, early retirement, and huge pensions, can afford to stand in the street protesting. Common sense tells us anyone with this much time to protest and the ability to abandon their work duties is greatly overpaid."


    Liberals hiding in the back-alley of abortion debate - Heather Cirmo The Daily Caller
    "The flawed logic is that abortion should not be outlawed because some women will find any way to get an abortion, even if it is dangerous. Apart from the ridiculous assertion that a law is only worth passing and keeping if it is upheld by all the people all the time (talk about an argument for anarchy!), the so-called pro-choice crowd does not give enough credit to women to act righteously with new information accessible to them. In other words, if women start believing — based largely upon recent advances in medical technology — that life begins at conception, hearts and minds on the issue of abortion will change and abortion will be seen as an immoral act — namely the killing of another human being."


    What the Puberty Talk Can Teach Us About Discipleship - Russell Moore
    "Parents do this because they know puberty is, literally, a crisis. It’s a turning point that brings unique temptations and tests. But it’s not the only such crisis. Every stage of life brings with it something comparable. Parents can demystify, to some degree, puberty because they’ve been through it themselves...


    ...Why don’t we do the same thing elsewhere in the life cycle, within the life of the church 
    Why don’t our older women tell twenty-something young brides about the kind of isolation that can come with small children in the house? Why don’t our older men prepare our thirtysomethings for the testosterone drop that often prompts what we call a “midlife crisis”? Why can’t older women teach younger women how to handle the hormonal upheaval that can come with menopause, and how to go through it with Christlikeness? Why couldn’t the elderly in our congregations warn the younger generations about the pull toward bitterness or despondency or rage that can come with failing health or life in nursing homes?"




    Here's another example of our Federal government wasting millions and millions of dollars.  Twenty states, including Ohio, have received grants from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act "to support states with the development and implementation of systems that promote the linking of data across time and databases, from early childhood into career."  States receiving grants will now be setting up systems to track our children from cradle to "career."  Grants range from $5.1 million to $19.7 million.  


    Combat troops to get gay sensitivity training
    "American combat troops will get sensitivity training directly on the battlefield about the military’s new policy on gays instead of waiting until they return to home base in the United States, the senior enlisted man in Afghanistan said Thursday....
    ...Army Command Sgt. Maj. Marvin Hill, the top enlisted man in Afghanistan where 100,000 U.S. troops are deployed, said that the sessions on respecting gays’ rights will go right down to the forward operating bases, where troops fight Taliban militants...
    ...Our plan is to take their direction, and we’re going to execute that training right here on the battlefield.” ...No unit is exempted, he said... 
    ...“Our goal is to not allow a unit to return to home station and have the unit responsible for that,” he said. “While we own those soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines, we’re going to execute that training on the ground...
    ...“If there are people who cannot deal with the change, then they’re going to have to do what’s best for their troops and best for the organization and best for the military service and exit the military service, so that we can move forward - if that’s the way that we have to go,” Sgt. Hill said on the television show, “Washington Watch” in December."


    Let the social engineering begin.  As if our front-line combat troops don't have enough to do.