Hit And Jog: A Bunch Of Topics

I've had a migraine today but had all these topics I wanted to post so I went ahead and just pasted them here without any editing. Didn't want all these links plastered all over my drafts. Enjoy the disjointedness.  

"Public policy designed to help workers who lose their jobs can lead to structural unemployment as an unintended side effect. . . . In other countries, particularly in Europe, benefits are more generous and last longer. The drawback to this generosity is that it reduces a worker's incentive to quickly find a new job. Generous unemployment benefits in some European countries are widely believed to be one of the main causes of "Eurosclerosis," the persistent high unemployment that affects a number of European countries."

Let's play who said that?

It makes sense. It's what I learned in school and always tended to subscribe to how excessive safety nets serve as a 'disincentive' just like they lead to an 'enabling' state through excessive entitlements.

And don't tell me we're not over doing it with the entitlements.

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Nik from Skeptical Eye reported that serial killer Richard Ramirez has died.

First, won't you all join me in saying, rot in hell you piece of shit.

Second, I never understood why it takes so long to execute someone on death row.

About capital punishment.

California voted to keep it last year, yet its political masters don't seem to want to abide by what the people want.

Politicians tend to forget they represent the people and must honor what they want.

To go against is dictatorial.

The nerve.

***

Obama's war on leaks.

B-b-b-but....Bush? 

***

Conservative Michael Lind chimed in with this priceless ' the question libertarians can't answer' gem. It must be quite the scene watching the neo-Marxist, hipster doofus, sloppy sophists over at Salon high five one another with this critical thinking nightmare. 

"If you're idea is so good why isn't anyone using it?"

I hate people who talk like that.
 
I'll let better minds explain why Lind is an epic fail. His argument holds no water whatsoever.   

Tom Woods first. 

W.W. Houston in The Economist next. 

Captain Obvious says:

I'm not sure what this libertarian utopia actually is, but every time we move closer to it it seems to work, reductions in tariffs, secure property rights, lower corporate taxes, the common law, free speech, freedom of religion, the end of prohibition. There's a reason these are all trends that numerous different states have adopted out of shear practicality, and it's not difficult to discern the common theme.

 EXACTLY.
 
I sense more and more people will go back to our original liberal values.

An embrace of old-fashioned liberal values - freedom, responsibility, and individualism - can be healthy. It encourages the can-do approach that is necessary in any society and which encourages growth-oriented capitalism. A wise approach is to understand that while such moves society forward, it cannot be used as an excuse to embrace an entrenched inequality of opportunity for the minority and disenfranchised classes. Note, not equality of result, but a truly fair chance at opportunity.

And finally a different take on libertarianism. Make that ethereal libertariainsim.

If you ever visit a mental ward where the psychotics are housed, you will see that it is a community of people whose lives are lived exclusively inside their heads. Inside thier heads is a reality entirely of their own construction. That is to say, a reality free of all external governance. The person is the sole producer, director and actor and whoever, whomever and whatever else are needed to be recruited to do that reality.
.
And the beauty is there are many many of these parallel realities in the ward and they all peacefully co-exist.
.
The kicker is when they finally die, it is someone outside their heads who buries them.

***

Speaking of bad thinking. Like messed up hair after a long night drinking bad thinking, it's always nice Elizabeth May won't disappoint.

I must recall she the polito-child who had the colonial presence of mind to write to the Queen to make that little bad man Harper do good environmental things for the world.

May is a tad obsessed with prorogation a legal Parliamentary tactic used in Australia, the UK and of course Canada. A process she acknowledges is legal but chooses to use a Lindian-method of 'but he's worst' than this guy.'

May and her ilk don't seem to have the simple decency to accept not everyone agrees with them. Just because you 'hate' someone (as many made clear that's how they feel about Harper) doesn't entitle you to believe what you want to believe in order to make a non-factual point.

Grow up.

I was going to challenge each of her point but honestly, I'm tired now. I'll just have to hope and assume smart people who read this see right through its vapidness.

I'll do a couple:

1) First prime minister of Canada to prorogue to avoid political difficulties since Sir John A Macdonald, and Macdonald, on return, immediately went to an election.

Wrong. Jean Chretien did it in 2002. The McGuinty Liberals also did it in Ontario.

2) First Canadian prime minister to prorogue twice to avoid political difficulties.

So what? This doesn't make him Canadian? Abuse of power is practiced by all leaders. Just look at Obama down in the States. That guy is making Nixon and Bush look like amateurs.

3) Only prime minister in the entire Commonwealth in the last 100 years to prorogue to avoid a political difficulty. (The prime minister of Sri Lanka tried once, but the Governor General refused).

No he isn't. The UK prorogued the 54th session in 2010.

The funny thing is May is ranting and railing against something that is democratic and available to be used by any party.

Personally, I'm glad he did it to prevent a Liberal-NDP coalition. It was the responsible thing to do since they were the ones being utterly irresponsible; to say nothing of not accepting how Canadians voted.

Those two dinky parties were nowhere near ready to seize power - and still aren't. It would be like the scene in The Simpsons when the students overpowered Principal Skinner and took over the school.

The ultimate irony of course is that prorogation actually shows how our democracy works and further exemplifies the strengths of that democracy. It's just that it sucks for the people on the other side of the coin as May is. 

***

 Who said that?

Paul Krugman.

Sorry.

Kroooooooooogman.