Politics and Culture

Obama accuses Republicans of flip-flopping.

A few years ago, there was a funny skit in either Living Color or SNL that noticed the "people who ruin everything." I don't remember too well, but it was about those who, through their irresponsibility, took something away from the rest of us. An unfunny example would be the murderers who make airport travel bothersome and time intensive.

So, I was reading about a lawsuit against Wynn resorts for failing to protect their employees against second hand smoke. Some thoughts:

1. Second hand smoke is a scam. No harm, no law suit.

2. Still, if there's a law on the books about smoking in the workplace, and the casino doesn't follow it, they should get in trouble with the law. This was not the case.

3. By making employers responsible for things not conceived of by either legislators, regulators, employees, and employers; the plaintiffs and their attorneys "ruin everything." From now on businesses will be forced to be so proactive as to burden everybody else.

4. Including those people who like to smoke.

5. If the lady thinks smoking is bad, she should have left. Maybe she could have worked as an operator for an online casino where she'd only be smelling the stink from her own home. Now, she should be lobbying for anti-smoking laws.

6. The union and Wynn only care about money.

7. Add in the lawyers, and these things are enough to make people cynical.

Michelle Malkin writes about Apple's decision to pull out of the Chamber of Commerce because of the business organization's opposition to the Cap and Trade bill. She correctly points out that Apple makes all of its products in China, which would laugh a tax on CO2 out of the country.

I suppose a lot of the eco-bandwagoning has to do with marketing, otherwise corporations- from Amway to Wells Fargo(?)- wouldn't make a big deal about it.

So, the other day, I was buying a 2010 refill for my planner (next will be the year I get organized ). Some of the products, the Day Planner for example, boasted of its green-ness. I avoided them because I felt that I'd be paying extra for an inferior product. That's one form of affinity marketing that doesn't work on me.

To think that some people pay for education.

Hmmm, if I weren't working for the government, I'd be doing something important like...full-time blogging.

More below. I have a policy of not posting things I see on the big con-blogs (like The Corner in this case), but the dude asked me to because he relies on viral marketing.

Privately owned and funded with little subsidies and a potential for profit, this is solar free-market types can cheer. Conservatives should make clear that their opposition to lefty energy schemes isn't a nostalgia for oil or Luddite-ism , but a suspicion of government-willed, political solutions to practical problems and a concern for Americans' tax money and ability to compete with less dreamy-eyed societies.

I was thinking of Thom Hartman again, as well as some of my friends who feel that population is a problem. Remember, I said:

There's no ideal population number. It's only because no-growth liberals see people as mouths to feed instead of as inherently valuable. Combine this with liberals' need to take care of everybody and you can see how getting rid of people or, better yet, never having them come into being, would be a priority with them.

Let's take a look at what this kind of thinking would have looked like, in 1935, say:

"The American population has increased greatly in 150 years. We now have over 150,000,000 people and many of them are hungry. We should have stopped at 100,000,000, but, at least, we should stop growing now, or risk mass starvation."

You can make this argument at any point in history.

1. Ford is going strong, relative to other auto manufacturers. They have a very attractive line up, with an easy-to-understand small (Focus), medium (Fusion), and large (Taurus) lineup that more closely resembles Toyota than the former GM's completely confusing array of vehicles. The concept actually reminds me of other product categories like laptops or iPods.

I have to think that some of Ford's success has to do with it being the only privately-owned American automobile company that hasn't asked for a bailout- people may be boycotting.

2. I was talking to a teacher friend of mine about the current economic situation. We both agreed that it was very difficult for people now. He said something that was interesting, however. When I said that Europeans have permanent 10% unemployment, he replied, "Yeah, but they have health care and good unemployment benefits."

Very interesting. Such a sentiment would represent a huge shift in American values, one that would make us poorer, certainly, and worse people in general, in my opinion.

I replied that it probably wasn't that attitude that brought your ancestors to the United States.

3. I attended an LAUSD board meeting. I'll explain my reasons for attending later, but I had to wait a long time before I could speak because one of the members, Julie Korenstein, was retiring, and many people came to praise her. I noticed that the speakers mostly talked about how she funded this project or another- psychologists for kindergarteners, "green" power, recycling. About halfway through, I thought: "Hey! Maybe this is why the school district is broke!"

4. When Ms. Korenstein spoke about her career, she recalled how she fought for "accurate information in health textbooks."

"Hmmm, what did she mean? Did the book say that washing hands is a waste of time or that we have 52 teeth?"

No, it turns out that Bush had given some federal funds to districts if they mentioned abstinence in their textbooks. Ms. Korenstein may think that abstinence is a bad policy and prefer that young ladies insist that their partners use condoms instead, but "accuracy" in science means whether something is empirically observable; unless the text said that abstinence will allow teens to sprout wings and fly, I'm pretty sure the information was "accurate." To Ms. Korenstein, conservative ideas aren't just bad policy, they're objectively, scientifically false.

5. The Wisconsin werewolf appears the day after Michael Jackson dies. Coincidence?

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6. Obama said that he "believes in the UN" and wants to "revitalize" it. Question: In order to revitalize something, doesn't it have to have been "vital" at one time? The only time it did anything of significance was Korea in 1950 and only then because the Soviet Union was boycotting.

7. Some people are saying that Kim Jong Il may want to start a nuclear war before he dies- "go out with a bang," so to speak. This is the evil version of the Randy Pausch-"Bucket List" philosophy of life, a form of secular existentialism wherein a life filled with "great" accomplishments is a meaningful one. Phrases associated with this idea include "leaving a mark on the world" and people who hold it usually suppose no life after death. Life, for them, is like a one-week vacation: they have a limited time to "see everything." It can be a motivator. It can also be a depressor if one dwells on the fact that all of the memories acquired during the trip will be gone the day one arrives home. Those vacations stress me out. Anyways, Il's mark would be a huge crater within Seoul.