Never mind, I AM in Philadelphia.
Waiting for the 3rd, and final leg of my trip back from Boise.
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Month: February 2013
Good
Jenny McCarthy has been has been dropped from a cancer fundraiser because of her anti-vaccine bullsh%$:
The Ottawa Cancer Foundation has reversed its decision to hire actress and model Jenny McCarthy to headline its one-day fitness fundraiser Bust A Move.
In a statement released late Friday afternoon, the foundation said McCarthy would be replaced by Canadian celebrity fitness instructor and former CFL player Tommy Europe.
The statement said that since the announcement of McCarthy’s appearance, “…attention has shifted away from breast cancer awareness and fundraising.”
On Tuesday, McCarthy was revealed as Bust A Move’s guest fitness instructor, which caused many to question why an organization supporting cancer research would invite someone with a history of promoting erroneous ideas about health and disease.
Despite reams of scientific research to the contrary, McCarthy writes and speaks publicly about the supposed link between child vaccination and autism. The former Playboy Playmate also blames her son’s autism on vaccinations.
Word of McCarthy’s appearance at a charity cancer event sparked a #dropjenny hashtag on Twitter, which generated many comments about whether the actress was a credible choice. Similar online debate occurred on Bust A Move’s Facebook page.
I’m not saying that Jenny McCarthy should not be able to work because of her beliefs, but allowing her to be a spokesperson for anything remotely medical is like having António Egas Moniz (the inventor of the prefrontal lobotomy) as a spokesman for psychological counseling.
Deep Thought
As I won’t through the scanner at the airport security check point, I had to hold my hands above my head and together, making a letter”A”.
I was REALLY tempted to start with the hand symbols for “Y”, “M”. and “C”, but I didn’t.
I figured that my homage to the Village People result in a strip search.
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Light Posting for the Next Few Days
I’m heading out to Boise, Idaho tomorrow for a 2 day business trip.
Hopefully I will have the opportunity to sample some Basque cuisine.
Packing right now.
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Buh Bye Scotty
Scott Brown will not be running for Senate in the special election.
My guess is that he decided that the Republican Party is just too damn radioactive in Massachusetts this year.
It looks like the Republicans may try to convince former Governor William Weld, the only Republican I ever voted for,* but I cannot imagine that the Club for Growth crowd would not end up subverting a campaign of his.
He is an old-line New England liberal Republican, and there are significant elements of the Republican base that would support a Democrat against him, just as the did with Lieberman over Weiker in the 1980s.
*He was running against BU President John Silber, who was a f%$#ing lunatic. Even though I still believe that it was the right thing, but I felt dirty afterward.
You Tell Them to Go Cheney Themselves
Another Cave
Obama tries to split the baby again, offering a compromise on birth control:
The Obama administration proposed yet another compromise on Friday in an effort to address the concerns of religious organizations that object to its policy requiring health insurance plans to cover contraceptives for women at no charge.
Kathleen Sebelius, the secretary of health and human services, said the proposal would guarantee free coverage of birth control “while respecting religious concerns.”
Churches and religious organizations that object to providing birth control coverage on religious grounds would not have to pay for it.
Under the proposal, female employees could get free birth control coverage through a separate plan that would be provided by a health insurer. The institution objecting to the coverage would not pay for the contraceptives. The costs would instead be paid by the insurance company, with the possibility of recouping the costs through lower health care expenses resulting in part from fewer births.
Obama does not get it.
The Catholic Church, and its Talibaptist allies, are want the right to enforce their religious beliefs on others.
This is all about a naked assertion of power, and the proper response is “F%$# You”, not fence mending.
Why Unions are In Decline
Kris Warner compares union penetration of the labor market in the United States, and compares it to that of Canada, and rather observes that there are some real reasons for this, and that they exist because labor rights have been under legislative assault in the United States since the passage of Taft-Hartley:
Today, the Bureau of Labor Statistics released its annual summary of unionization in the U.S. It reports that in 2012, the union-membership rate of wage and salary workers was 11.3 percent, compared with 11.8 percent in 2011. The trend has been downward for some time: Fifty years ago, the figure was almost 30 percent.
It’s conventional wisdom that the post-industrial workforce doesn’t want to be unionized. But survey data show that workers’ desire to join unions has been growing since the 1980s, and a majority of nonunion workers would now vote for union representation if given the opportunity. So if workers want unions, why is unionization falling?
Commentators have also blamed the decline on everything from globalization to technological advances to the hollowing-out of American manufacturing. But those factors are only part of the story.
Canada’s experience offers another answer. Canada has gone through many of the same economic and social changes as the U.S. since the middle of the 20th century, yet it hasn’t seen the same precipitous decline in unionization. The unionization rate in the U.S. and Canada followed fairly similar paths from 1920 to the mid-1960s, at which point they began to diverge drastically.
Differences in labor law and public policy are at the root of this disparity.
No so-called “right to work” laws in Canada, card check, or elections that are conducted in 1-3 weeks, instead of months, or possibly years, the right to first contract arbitration, so that employers cannot simply stonewall negotiations to a new union for years.
I want us to be more like Canada.
Meh
The labor force grew by 157000 jobs in January:
American employers added 157,000 jobs in January compared with a revised 196,000 jobs the previous month, the Labor Department reported on Friday. The unemployment rate was little changed at 7.9 percent, about where it has been stuck since September.
On the bright side, revised government data showed that the economy added 335,000 more jobs than originally estimated during all of 2012, including an additional 150,000 in the last quarter of the year. That was on top of the previously reported fourth-quarter job growth of 603,000 and 2012 growth of 2.2 million.
The higher revisions, in particular, encouraged traders on Wall Street, sending the Dow Jones industrial average over the 14,000-point mark for the first time since 2007.
Still, job growth has been modest compared with previous recoveries, and economists saw little in January’s report to suggest that hiring would pick up soon.
Look at the graph.
The current rate has jobs remaining below trend for over a decade, the best realistic case we see is still a lost decade.
Like I said, “Meh”.
These employment numbers Kung Fu is weak.