Friday Fodder (7-25-2013) ~ Language

COSPLAY 2013

“No, No, No”

Catch Anyone??

Dinner Anyone?

Performing for Dolphins

Funny, His Name is Coon

Meanwhile… in Russia

Better Than the Tour-de-France (see full video here: http://youtu.be/tOyOxzp-QAI)

Dog VERY Happy To See Soldier Back After 6-month Deployment (the Cat Below? Not So Much)

Beatboxing… Evolved

Country Boys (Language) ~ Lots More On Their YouTube

Girls FAIL!

Summer Hacks

What Really Killed Detroit? Was It Small Government?

Via American Thinker:

….What really killed Detroit and what drove me away was the government deciding it knew how the market should operate better than the market did. The market operates on a simple concept, “An honest day’s pay for an honest day’s work.” If an employee doesn’t think he is being paid enough, he can leave. If an employer is unhappy with an employee’s performance he can fire him.

Well-meaning government programs such as Unemployment Insurance, Workman’s Compensation and Wrongful Discharge (i.e. age discrimination, sex discrimination, racial discrimination etc.), that were meant to help and protect employees turned this market concept on its head. In Detroit, hiring someone became the worst thing an employer could do, and being fired became one of the best days in an employee’s life. Allow me to explain.

As mentioned earlier, when I left Detroit I had 20 employees. But, 10 years earlier I had 5 employees. As the business grew I had to hire more people. As it turned out, to get one good employee, I had to hire about 8. So to get an additional 15 people, I had to hire over ten years approximately 120 people. This is when doing business in Detroit really started to get expensive.

When an employee left my employ, whether by quitting or being fired, they immediately went to the Unemployment Office where they were given unemployment payments. Employers such as me went to great lengths to make sure that if someone was fired it was for a good documentable reason, in an effort to avoid having to pay for unemployment. In practice, that didn’t matter too much. The likelihood that the State would grant benefits was extremely high, maybe 80%. If you protested you had to appear before a state “referee,” who was, unsurprisingly, very biased in favor of the claimant.

In the financial reports I was mandated to send to the State, it was all too obvious I had not paid nearly enough to cover the costs of the benefits the State paid out. In its wisdom, the State then hit me with a surcharge to cover the costs of the benefits paid to people who the State should never have allowed to get benefits in the first place. My unemployment costs soared.

But as bad as unemployment costs got, they were nothing compared to Workman’s Compensation. Here is the way the game was played: If you were on unemployment it was understood that you were “ready, willing and able” to work. If you were on Workman’s Compensation it meant you were injured and could not work. So, an employee always went for Unemployment benefits first and when they ran out, suddenly discovered that he was injured, usually with a bad back. In Detroit, an employer almost never won a Comp case.

After a period of time, my insurance company put me in what was called the “Assigned Risk” pool. What that meant in practice was that my Workman’s Compensation insurance costs doubled overnight. Every new employee hired became a huge financial burden not in terms of wages but in terms of Unemployment and Workman’s Comp costs.

But perhaps the scariest thing that could happen to an employer was being summoned in front of the Civil Rights Commission, to face charges of “Wrongful Discharge.” Here you had to prove a negative, that you did not violate someone’s rights. This happened to me three times. If the Commission determined you were guilty, which were two out of three for me, the remedy was to pay all of an employee’s wages from the time he was separated from your employ to the time of the Commission’s finding. Since the system moved very slowly, an employer could be faced with paying as much as two years’ salary.

This was enough to get me and hundreds like me out of Detroit. I could build a stronger “fort,” but I couldn’t beat the system. That, however, wasn’t the end of what our government did to Detroit.

The final nail in the coffin came from the Environmental Protection Agency. It happened sometime in the late 1980’s. This was when by EPA decree, almost everyone associated with manufacturing in the City of Detroit, became a criminal. People who had worked honestly for years to pay for their building and property woke up one morning to find that because of the EPA, their property was worthless, or worse. Is it any wonder there are so many abandoned factories?

In Detroit, government distorted the marketplace by replacing truth and honesty with a preconceived social agenda. Because of this, things only got worse and Detroit is now bankrupt. Detroit is but the first to fall…there will be more.

…read more…

A Neat Farewell To 20-Years Served

This is a mini documentary of the last flight of CW4 Bowersock’s Army career. He served over 20 years flying for the United States Army. This was also the first time he had seen the Grand Canyon. I couldn’t think of a better last flight. A grateful nation thanks you for your service and wishes you the best of luck in the future for you and your family.

Blue Skies!

If Detroit is an example of small government-God Help Us All!!

God Help us All!!

If Detroit is an example of small government… God Help Us All!! Melissa Harris Perry forgets that Detroit has been run by unions and big government Democrats for over 5 decades, and was then bailed out and over-regulated by the current administration… how convenient.

As the Chicks on the Right mention…

….Meanwhile, back in Reality-Land, National Review’s writer Kevin Williamson gave us all the real picture of Detroit back in 2011, while it was on its path to bankruptcy, when he penned the following:

Detroit maintains 13,000 government workers but has 22,000 government retirees burrowed into the body politic, and their health-care subsidies alone account for nearly $200 million of the city’s budget. Pensions alone already account for a quarter of city spending; in three years, they will account for half. Pensions and city workers’ health-care subsidies account for $561 per year from every resident of Detroit, which has a very poor population — average monthly income of barely $1,200 before taxes, a fifth of the population in poverty, etc. The official unemployment rate is 30 percent; the real rate is much higher.

But never mind all that. The answer to EVERYTHING for MHP and all her little commie friends at MSNBC is government, government, government, dontchaknow.  If Detroit JUST would’ve had more GOVERNMENT and more spending….then it would’ve been fine, minions

Gay Patriot brought my attention to a failed prophecy of Obama’s wonderful handle on economics 101.

As Michael Barone reported yesterday in the Washington Examiner:

National Journal’s Major Garrett has an excellent column today looking back on President Obama’s 2011 Labor Day speech in Detroit. “This is a city that has been to heck and back,” Obama said then. “And while there are still a lot of challenges here, I see a city that’s coming back.” Noting that Obama cited the “advanced battery industry taking root here in Michigan,” Garrett points out that the battery firm in question, A123 Systems, received $249 million in Energy Department grants–and is now bankrupt. And of course so is the city of Detroit.

In matters economical, this man’s powers of prognostication aren’t particularly strong.

…read more…

Moonbat points out — of course — that the “official” numbers from the White House, even if true, are REAL BAD!

Barack Hussein Obama set out to be a transformative president. He has already succeeded. Presidential spokesliar Jay Carney recently credited the Regime with creating 7.2 million private sector jobs. Even if that preposterous boast were true, it would hardly put a dent in Obama’s legacy:

Since February of 2009, the first full month of Obama’s presidency, 9.5 million Americans have dropped out of the labor force. Nearly 90 million Americans are not working today!

That means that 1.3 Americans have dropped out of the labor force for every one job the administration claims to have created.

There are 15 million more Americans on food stamps today than when Obama assumed office. …

That means that more than two Americans have been added to the food stamp rolls for every one job the administration says it has created.

If we were to take how many jobs the Regime actually has created — limited mainly to the overstaffing of the largely useless federal bureaucracy — and subtract from it the number of jobs it has destroyed through ObamaCare and excessive taxation and regulation in general, the number of new jobs for which Obama deserves credit would be millions in the negative.

…read more…

Norwegian Woman Jailed in Dubai, for Being Raped

Read more at Jihad Watch!

“Under UAE law, rapists can only be convicted if either the perpetrator confesses or if four adult Muslim males witness the crime.” That is pure Sharia, based on Qur’an 24:4 and 24:13. Those verses, according to Islamic tradition, are a result of Muhammad’s exoneration of his favorite wife, Aisha, who was suspected of adultery. Allah gave him a revelation requiring four male witnesses to establish such a crime: “And those who accuse honourable women but bring not four witnesses, scourge them (with) eighty stripes and never (afterward) accept their testimony – They indeed are evil-doers” (Qur’an 24:4). The problem with this is that women who accuse men of rape but cannot produce four male witnesses are often accused themselves of zina — unlawful sexual intercourse — and jailed as a result. This is not limited just to Dubai or the UAE. According to Sisters In Islam, a Muslim reform group, there is evidence that most — up to 75% — of the women imprisoned in Pakistan are there because of rape.

(Via Vlad) Not surprisingly the Islamic aspects of this story have been removed [from the RT story below]. Aspects such as the fact that her rapist was a Muslim, it was Islamic law that had her jailed for being raped and her Muslim boss fired her for reporting the rape and she, being Norwegian, is probably pissed off that her world view of Islam being wonderful and enlightened and Jews being the real problem is being challenged by all this reality. Must really get tough after a while.

Brandon Darby of Breitbart Encounters Invasion of [Progressive] Body Snatchers

I thought of the classic ending of the 1978 Invasion of the Body Snatchers when I watched the pointing at the Breitbart crew:

  • Brandon Darby gets verbally attacked at a July 21,2013 Trayvon rally organized by the New Black Panther Party and Quanell X. The Occupy contingent recognized Darby while he was on assignment for Breitbart News. (Via Breitbart)

Faux Racist ~ Media Distorts

It is worse than a liberal-progressive radical lying… the Media knew that she was separated from the Zimmerman portion of the protest and clearly on the New Black Panther side of the line… yet, they still painted her as with the Zimmerman crowd. Here is the early reporting from the blogs about it, via Gateway Pundit:

That looked incongruent with the other reports from the pro-Zimmerman side. The NY Daily News, based on reporting from The Houston Chronicle, identified her as Renee Vaughan:

One woman in the Zimmerman group held a sign that said, “We’re racist & proud.”

Austin resident Renee Vaughan echoed the sign’s ugly sentiments by yelling, “We’re racist. We’re proud. We’re better because we’re white,” at the Martin group as they passed, according to the Chronicle.

The act to smear the Zimmerman supporters as racists with a leftist plant worked as the photo and comment was picked up and spread worldwide.

Scanning the internet we found that a “Renee Vaughn” from Austin worked for a far left environmental group, the Texas Campaign for the Environment.

Renee even has her photo linked to a far left environmental website.

…read more…

Faux Racist Democrat Plant

  • Breitbart News: What does your sign mean?
  • Woman: This sign means that there are people here who are racist and apparently think that’s OK. I’m not one of them. I’m being sarcastic. 
  • Breitbart News: OK.
  • Fellow anti-Zimmerman Protestor: Yo. What she said.

Breitbart points out all the places where this person was touted as a genuine Zimmerman protestor:

…The Houston Chronicle’s Jayme Fraser wrote of the woman pictured above: “At one point, Renee Vaughan of Austin mocked protesters by chanting, “We’re racist. We’re proud. We’re better ’cause we’re white.” The language of the article was somewhat clumsy, allowing other media outlets to jump to the wrong conclusion.

The New York Daily News’ Philip Caulfield used the following caption for the above photo, from the Associated Press: “A George Zimmerman supporter holds a sign during a counter-demonstration of activist Quanell X’s group march in the River Oaks community in Houston on Sunday.” He also wrote: “One woman in the Zimmerman group held a sign that said, ‘We’re racist & proud,'” distorting the Chronicle story significantly.

The UK Daily Mail repeated the error, reporting that the sign was held by members of the pro-Zimmerman group in Houston, portraying it as a form of racist backlash against the New Black Panther Party march.

Democratic strategist Tara Dowdell then took to Fox News’ Hannity to repeat the false accusation, using the “racist and proud” sign story to push back against video evidence of intolerance at pro-Trayvon Martin rallies. 

Well, Sean, do some people show up at protests with their own agenda? Absolutely. That happens all the time. There was a pro-Zimmerman rally in Texas where a woman showed up with a sign that said “Racist and Proud.” And that was in the newspaper today. So certainly there are people who show up who behave badly at protests, and that’s not something you can really control for.

[….]

Gateway Pundit concludes she was a “leftist plant” who intended to trick or otherwise deceive the media. As the interview reveals, however, she was quite honest and open about her intentions and what her sign meant. She also located herself quite clearly on the Trayvon Martin/New Black Panther Party-supporting side of the demonstration (this video shows the two sides were clearly separated and distinguished from each other).

[WHICH THE MEDIA SHOULD HAVE PICKE-UP!]

…read more…

The reason the media simply picked this up as true is that it has a narrative it believes to be true — that is, the Zimmerman case was over race… and Republicans are racist. Ergo, ad hoc — and all that jazz — the sign must be true… PLUS, it is in Texas! Double-Jeopardy, it must be true. Renee Vaughan has since apologized:

 

Corn, Bad Health, and Government Regulation ~ Econ 101 via Loyola University

From video description:


“How Food Regulations Make Us Less Healthy” by @LearnLiberty

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Why do we consume so much high fructose corn syrup? Why does America suffer from an obesity epidemic? And why are fruits and vegetables so expensive? Professor Dan D’Amico of Loyola University argues that special interests and government policy are at least partly to blame. According to Professor D’Amico, rent seeking and regulations — such as “organic” certification — results in lower costs for less healthy foods and higher costs for nutritional foods. When corn farmers dedicate their time and money to extracting exorbitant government subsidies, corn becomes cheaper, and more people demand it. When regulations mandate special certification in order to vend organic foods, smaller farmers cannot afford to cut through the red tape, putting them out of business, decreasing competition, and raising prices on healthy foods.

So why don’t we stop this madness? Concentrated benefits and dispersed costs of course! The cost to the individual consumer of these subsidies is so small and the price impact so marginal, that it isn’t worth it for people to organize and petition government. Until we can solve this collective action problem, we’re going to be consuming a lot more high fructose corn syrup.

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From video description:


Coke is made with corn syrup, not real sugar. Why is this? According to Professor Diana Thomas, part of the reason is because government policies artificially raise the price of sugar.

Although these government policies actually cost Americans approximately $3 billion each year, the laws remain. The law benefits one group of people (farmers) at the expense of another group (consumers). But because the cost to each American is so small, average Americans don’t have an incentive to combat the lobbying groups who fight to keep the laws in place.

This phenomenon is known as “dispersed costs and concentrated benefits,” and it applies in many cases when laws are passed that benefit a small group of citizens. Prof. Thomas says the only way to prevent or end this practice is to limit what government can do.

Learn More:

A defense of farm subsidies, by the Alabama Cooperative Extension System: http://lrnlbty.co/TdO6iS

Introduction to public choice, including the concept of concentrated benefits and dispersed costs: http://lrnlbty.co/SbNc57

An article focusing on the health and environmental impacts of American corn/sugar policies: http://lrnlbty.co/UFHUNA

A detailed piece on the allocation of agricultural subsidies to various plants: http://lrnlbty.co/TO0RNt

A timeline of the economic controls put on sugar from 1789 to 2011: http://lrnlbty.co/WtaHep

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