A lighter snack - 21 October 2010

[silveradept]

Good morning, keeps of pets of odd sizes and shapes. In another case of Internet memes manifesting in the real world, long cat is long. Record-breakingly so.

Also, a sketch for a heroine that would capture a significant readership and subtly introduce them to the world of heroines being tied up by villains.

Sketching professionaly for a bit, I agree - forcing people to come into the physical library to download an electronic copy of a book is stupidity of the highest magnitude.

Did we mention that public libraries are almost always connected to the Internet and offer free-as-in-gratis wireless access?

Out in the world today, signals that the United States is planning on selling jets and upgrades to Saudi Arabia may be fueling the ostentatious displays of military power and hardware by Iran.

Inside the United States, what a difference a few years makes. Anwar Al-Alwaki was invited to the Pentagon as a moderate Muslim guest soon after the 11 September attacks in 2001 Now, he's being chased and hunted as an inspirer of domestic terrorists.

We knew this was going to happen - the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals granted a stay on the lower court ruling that imposed a moratorium on the "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy. So those servicemembers planning their coming-out party will still have to wait and worry that they will be discharged merely for being gay or lesbian.

Meet Drop Zone Security, the people responsible for handcuffing a reporter and threatening anyone else who got close to them - they're rather unsharp crayons in all of he spects of the businesses they run.

In technology, the changing...face of music, thanks to virtual avatars that can be programmed to sing just about any song you feed into them. Of course, as with all other things, including insurance mascots, Rule 34 applies. In the case of the mascot, it's possible the imaginations of others may have contributed to the killing of the character. The official reason, of course, is that the mascot got no recognition nor brand penetration. We like the other story better, because it makes for more interesting scenarioes, but truth's inmportant too.

Popular rental giant Netflix is considering a subscription model that will be only instant-streaming, an attractive option for those with fast internet connections and an unwillingness to wait for physical discs to arrive. Now, if they would only make sure that all of their catalogue is streaming-ready, instead of having first or last episodes only available on disc...

In opinions, I am amazed, sometimes, at how column writers can start on one thing, veer over to another, and end up making a point very different than what they were setting out to do, and can do so without signposting or showing where they make their logical hops to get to their conclusion. Example: what appears to be a screed against the erasure of religion in speeches by Democrats and liberals lurches violently into "government should be limited in scope by other social institutions such as social groups and churches and fosters dependency and unquestioning loyalty to the government when it takes over those spaces", and then has a quick volley between those two positions again before closing, with, I guess, having tried to implant in your mind that the government is trying to shut down your churches and force you to be dependent solely on them for assistance? I can't really tell.

For a far better example of proper column writing, surprisingly from someone who's not usually this articulate or clear, Mr. Pendry suggests that the matter of lesbian and gay service members is about the Constitutional authority given solely to Congress about the military operation and the creation of a Constitutional right to serve in the military, instead of about deeply-held religious beliefs or moral beliefs of individuals. That's at least a novel argument that could be considered - but it still means that we can hammer Congress to change the law or the executive to do something properly even as they sort out the Constitutional standing.

Mr. Sowell continues his multicultralism tirade, this time by praising those immigrants who adapted quickly and saying that a culture that forces its immigrants to abandon their native culture to get anywhere in their new space is just the right thing to have.

Mr. Stossel is back on the anti-union kick, first painting them as scary people who deliberately ensure slowness in production, then saying that public sector union pensions are what's dragging the country and the taxpayers down, and finishing up by saying that unions used to do good for workers, but now, the free market is superior and the public sector should be forced to compete with them on wages and benefits, so public sector workers can enjoy all the misery of the private sector, including crappy health care plans, tiny wages, and management that can dismiss someone without cause.

Last out for tonight, The Slacktivist talks about the need to look at all the Christian Foundational writings as a whole, a roadmap and directions for anyone to get to the joys of Christianity, and that those who use the writings like legalists, chopping context and slinging verse like arguments on why They shouldn't be allowed into heaven usually end up with the Bad Ending, because they separate themselves from the joy through their unwillingness to love all their brothers and sisters. A fascinating discussion erupts in the comments about the choice of examples for that last point - a lot of people sympathize with the older brother of the Prodigal Son and see his complaint that everyone's feasting over his brother and nobody has ever given him word one of thanks as a reasonable one for anyone who labors hard and thanklessly.

Comments

[shenalia.livejournal.com]

Stossel approaches the topic badly, but the point is still there: the government cannot continue to afford their current policies pertaining to public unions. It is simply economically unfeasible, and there SHOULD be a better balance between the public and private sector.

And that doesn't mean "bring up the private sector to match the public sector's current status", either. Also economically unfeasible - just look at what happened to California, a microcosm of this exact problem.

[silveradept]

I'm not sure I'm willing to narrow the ground of debate to "what needs to be done between government and unions so as to make for better parity" - the public sector always seems to be chronically underfunded thanks to policies designed to gut them of revenue and private sector entities that utilize loopholes and tax evasiveness to make them appear poorer than they are so as not to have to pay in the taxes that would be charged to a company that pays out the dividends and executive salaries/compensation that it does. It's an old saw, and it will never happen, so in practical terms, I suppose it's useless to say "If only everyone paid their correct share", but it's still a point to be made.

That said, in a recession such as this one, there's probably leeway that can be made on wages and pensions so as not to crash the system and to give it time to recover.

[shenalia.livejournal.com]

"Chronically underfunded"? Policies designed to "gut them of revenue"? Are we talking about the same thing here?

[silveradept]

Probably, although not in such inflammatory terms. Corporate welfare and tax breaks, the loopholes written in by politicians bought with corporate money, the smaller tax rate for capital gains, things described as tax breaks for the wealthy, and the idea that if you can't repeal an arm of government, if you don't give it a budget, it will have to shut its doors and you accomplish what you wanted anyway. Then, campaign to have the money that would be there returned in the form of a tax break or refund instead of being put to some other purpose.

It's the perception that Republicans in government want to give as much government money to corporations as they can, lower the tax rates as much as they can, and otherwise close as much government as they can, with the assumption that if such a thing is truly necessary, the private sector will find some way of recreating it.

[shenalia.livejournal.com]

No, apparently we're not talking about the same things. I'm talking about the tax burden created by overcompensation to public unions, usually via abnormally high pension programs (aka, the California problem), and you're coming back at me talking about... corporate welfare and corporate tax breaks?

I'm not talking about what Republicans what to do with tax money once it's not being spent on something else. I don't support that in the slightest. But linking the two is a complete strawman.

[silveradept]

Ah, okay. I think we're approaching the same problem with different ideas in mind. You're saying that the compensation is abnormally high and needs to be scaled back, I'm saying that it wouldn't necessarily need to be scaled back if we actually funded our government properly with taxes instead of finding all the ways to cheat and having corporations write the laws so that they can continue to legally cheat and pay nothing or next to it in taxes.

So, now that I understand where things are going, there's a possibility for flexibility, sure, and busting the budget is not a good end - on pensions, considering that the long-term look of a pension, it's probably possible to change the structure and benefits gradually to taper them down while we're in recessions and then possibly let them go up again in boom times. On wages, though, I'm not as flexible, but mostly because seeing how private sector people are struggling, one would think you want someone who can afford to keep their demand a bit higher so as not to drag more people onto assistance rolls or so that firms that are still employing can keep employing because the union workers are able to buy.

[shenalia.livejournal.com]

It's rarely about the wages being paid, actually. Much of the time, the public sector busting budgets is about the positions themselves or the benefits involved; the pension problem is one of those, but another is the way job security works. (Can't get rid of unnecessary positions / bad personnel because it's in the law to have it there!)

[shenalia.livejournal.com]

Plus, if the corporations were actually being taxed the way they should be, and not being given loopholes by their pet politicians, that money could still be put to better use than continuing an inflated system that rightfully needs a "market correction" (metaphor intended).

[silveradept]

That makes sense. Although you'll hear from the unions themselves that they've been bending over backward to accommodate this lack of funding as best they can, letting their benefits move toward what the private sector offers, and sometimes taking chunks of unpaid time as a way of making up the difference.

Any suggestions or ideas on how far the correction needs to go before the market people are satisfied? I know that some of them won't stop complaining unless those functions of government are outsourced or dropped entirely into the hands of the private sector, but let's concentrate on the people who think that public sector employees get too generous of benefits.

[thalass.livejournal.com]

With regard to that Don't Ask, Don't Tell thing. Is it required that someone who comes out of the closet is discharged? Or is it up to their commanding officer? That is, is it a cultural thing of "OMG OH NOES ITS A GHEY" or is it in the rules that they have to go?

[shenalia.livejournal.com]

It's currently a policy requirement. The chain of command has no choice about it. (I've been dealing with a lot of people who use "gay" as slang for "stupid", but that's just general society dumb.)

[thalass.livejournal.com]

Ah that's stupid, then. Also: we get the whole 'gay' as a substitute for 'stupid', here, too. That is also stupid. haha.