Normally I really dislike and oppose labor unions. I despise the AFL-CIO. But the New York Times Magazine has a fascinating article about one Andy Stern, the boss of the Service Employees International Union, and his efforts to bring Big Labor out of the 1950s and into the twenty-first century.
Here's a man interested more in getting things done than in protecting his own interests. He wants to work with employers, not against them, and recognizes that businessmen are really just trying to keep their company in the black, not deliberately seeking to harm their employees. It's this latter mentality entrenched in most labor supporters that I find so repugnant, and it's refreshing to see a union boss - particularly an influential boss of a powerful and growing union - take such genuinely progressive stances. He's said that he'll pull his 1.8 million works out of the AFL-CIO if certain reforms aren not enacted, and I think he might just do it.
It's a good read.
Last week Hillary Clinton stuck a fork in a leftist sacred cow by her speech to NYS Family Planning in which she said:
"I believe we can all recognize that abortion in many ways represents a sad, even tragic choice to many, many women. Often, it's a failure of our system of education, health care, and preventive services. It's often a result of family dynamics. This decision is a profound and complicated one; a difficult one, often the most difficult that a woman will ever make. The fact is that the best way to reduce the number of abortions is to reduce the number of unwanted pregnancies in the first place."
She then proceeded to make an argument for abstinence and her continued support for public health campaigns that encourage it.
Andrew Sullivan has an excellent analysis of the speech, and it - as usual - approximates pretty closely my position on the issue (except for the Santorum bashing - that's my senator, and he's served my state well for years: lay off).
If this is the kind of thing that Hillary will include in her platform in four years, this could get really interesting. Frist may want to hold off for a while.
No, I don't have it yet, but a few tracks are being streamed for those of you with broadband. Sounds really good. Can't wait.
Yeah, so I randomly checked Earlash, not expecting any new additions to the schedule, and lo and behold, the Polyphonic Spree is playing on 2/16.
Ticketmaster is your friend.
I think that privitization of Social Security is a step in the right direction, but I think it's ultimately a bad idea. Why? Because it and programs like it are associated with lower birth rates, which not only exacerbates the pay-as-you-go Ponzi scheme that these programs are, but severely jeopardizes the cultures which use them.
I'll be really surprised if anyone currently over the age of 40 sees a dime of Social Security money, and at the moment, I refuse to even consider the possibility that anyone over the age of 30 will get theirs. Which means there's not a snowball's chance in hell that I'll see mine.
Historically, society has worked in such a way that parents come to depend on their childen. Today, due in no small part to insane tax burdens, children depend longer and longer on their parents, to the extent that the latest sociological hot-topic is the masses of twenty and even thirty somethings who graduate from college only to move straight back in with mom and dad. This is insane, and if the government weren't taxing the living daylights out of everything that moves, maybe things would be different.
Conclusion: scrap with worthless, rob-the-poor-to-feed-the-rich program and cut my damn taxes. People already have enough trouble making ends meet without the government scraping 12% right off the top of their paychecks, a percentage which will grow in the coming years, I promise you that.
So I entirely support Bush's plans for Federally mandated individual retirement accounts, if only as a step to abolishing an inherently destructive system.
Just finished watching Dazed and Confused. A typical Linklater film, in that the losers are always the heroes, and responsibility is impugned, but still great. I do want to point out though, that certain actors' careers have gone way downhill since then.
So now they're saying that they've "lost faith in the stability of the U.S. dollar". Global economics being the bizzarre game of chicken/exercise in mob psychology that it is, this kind of thing is pretty mean-spirited, but exactly the kind of crap you can expect China to do.
China is reporting that their economy grew 9.5% last year, up 0.2% from 2003.
In related news, fifty-seven million pairs of boots were produced in Oceania last quarter.
Which is more plausible?
A fire in downtown Manhattan, probably caused by a vagrant, has resulted in the indefinite suspension of the C train. The C train is one of the two trains that stops on my block, and the one I ride at least 75% of the time.
Damn!
We're supposed to get all exercised about "executive greed", right? You know, CEO-types who are already making high six-figure to low seven-figure salaries getting multi-million dollar "bonuses". Bad, bad CEO. Right?
This doesn't bother me nearly as much as it's supposed to. I mean, as long as the company is moderately profitable - so no Enron or WorldCom situations - executive bonuses are just a great way for corporations to reduce their tax burden. I mean, if it didn't go to the CEO, it'd probably be posted as profit, which means corporate taxes - which are obscene - kick in. So by "overpaying" executives, we're really just keeping more money out in the economy where it can do some good instead of having it vanish into the government coffers. I mean, come on: if you got a cool extra million you'd spend a good bit of it. Taxes are to an economy what friction is to physics: it is necessary for certain processes to work, but overall, just makes everything more expensive and less efficient.
So go ahead: "overpay" those CEO types. Increase the efficiency of the economy.
So I just finished watching Akira a few minutes ago. Yeah. That's weird. Real weird. Huh boy.
Might I recommend watching something different if you want to continue in whatever mood you happen to be in? Because... yeah. I'm gonna go do something else now.
The next time someone goes espousing the virtues of the Internet and how it is going to transform culture and society, politely remind them that it is also quite capable of producing this.
Earlier this week, the president of Harvard University suggested - tangentially - that there may be some biological difference that causes more men than women to pursue and attain high-powered careers in science and engineering.
As you might expect, the uproar was immediate and noxious as sacred cows perished in droves.
Here's a really great analysis of Summers' statements and an argument for why they're appropriate.
Finally.
The weatherman is predicting 14-21 inches of snow through Sunday evening. Not going anywhere for a while...?
Here's to underground utility lines, cell phones, and electric blankets.
I'm headed out to lay in some supplies in preparation for the blizzard that's about to strike NYC from the west. The current severe weather warning calls for 12-15 inches of snow tomorrow. Fun.
But first, to make everyone's day just a little more morbid, I give you: bunny suicides. Don't ask; I don't know either. (I particularly like this one.)
I just read Bush's second inaugural speech. Whoever writes these things isn't getting paid enough. That was good.
I've not linked often to this guy's blog before, but today he's got a real winner of a post. It's not anything particuarly new, but it is a particularly clear and concise expression of my own political views with regard to earthly politics.
Well done.
I really hope the moonbats keep doing things like this. It's totally ineffectual, and keeps them occupied from doing something productive like, say, organizing a coherent opposition party. But that would involve protracted effort with little-to-no flair for the dramatic, so I guess that's out.
Wankers - 1. Democracy - 0.
Yeah, so Michael Moore's basic thesis in Bowling for Columbine is that the US is gripped in a "culture of fear", and that's why we own guns. Right.
In other news, one of Mr. Moore's bodyguards was arrested for illegal possession of a firearm in New York's JFK airport.
Huh. So, Metafilter had a link to this. "Stringberg and Helium". A morbidly morose man with a floating, manic, um, thingie...
Right.
I'm pretty ambivalent about copyright law. It's stories like this that cement that ambivalence.
Well, I'm back.
I made it to my apartment about an hour or so ago. Amtrak beats the bus any day of the week, even if they do run late. Break was relaxing, eventful, and contained a lot of really significant developments - at least they were significant for me. Time with friends, time with family, etc. The reason I haven't been posting much for the past month has to do with things going really well on the personal front, and not really keeping tabs on the normal socio-economic/political discourse that normally happens around here. Those interested in my life can contact me directly at rmd2106@[my school].edu.
But now break is over, and classes start tomorrow morning at 9 AM. Chemistry II and Physics I w/lab. Not a huge load, but combined with 8+ hours of volunteer work and a real need to boost my GPA, well, I've got my work cut out for me.
For now, I'll be putting a few things away whilst my poor radiator attempts valiantly to heat up a volume that has been fairly cool for the past three weeks. Then it's to bed.
Here goes nothing.
Markos Moulitsas Zuniga was already one of the most noxious and nauseating figures on the Internet, but now it goes up a notch. Turns out that not only was he on the payroll of Howard Dean's campaign - which he half-heartedly disclaimed at the time - but according to Slate he was actually taking money from undisclosed parties in exchange for endorsements. Amateur grass-roots movement my eye.
Look, if he wants to get paid, that's his right. I'm not trying to say that he can't use a good gig to make some bread. More power to him. But don't get all righteous about conservative bloggers being bought-off when you're so deep in the DNC's pockets that you can't even tell us about it.
I'm currently enjoying a very pleasant, mild buzz from the vicodin I'm on, following my surgery last night. I was actually scheduled to go in this afternoon, but around 5:00PM the pain got bad enough that I went in to the ED, fearing that a chronic problem had become acute. It was decided at that point to just go ahead and do it. I hit the OR at around 9:00PM, and spent the night in the hospital.
I'm okay now. Narcotics help, obviously, but the underlying problem has definitely been resolved. I'll be spending most of today and tomorrow watching DVDs and, with any luck, working my way through most of Halo 2, so feel free to give me a call.
