Part one of the Virtual State of the Union address:
[Update a couple minutes later]
OK, so it wasn’t a “mistake.” Washington Democrats are once again trying to get warrantless searches against gun owners.
Tar. Feathers.
Category Archives: Social Commentary
“Monopoly-Money Grades”
How universities have devalued their currency.
I had always thought that this kind of grade inflation started in the sixties, when many professors didn’t want to cost students their draft deferments by flunking them out, but a lot more has been driving it in recent decades. Time to rein it in.
[Update a few minutes later]
It’s not just grade inflation — it’s also degree inflation:
Of all the metropolitan areas in the United States, Atlanta has had one of the largest inflows of college graduates in the last five years, according to an analysis of census data by William Frey, a demographer at the Brookings Institution. In 2012, 39 percent of job postings for secretaries and administrative assistants in the Atlanta metro area requested a bachelor’s degree, up from 28 percent in 2007, according to Burning Glass.
“When I started recruiting in ’06, you didn’t need a college degree, but there weren’t that many candidates,” Ms. Manzagol said.
Even if they are not exactly applying the knowledge they gained in their political science, finance and fashion marketing classes, the young graduates employed by Busch, Slipakoff & Schuh say they are grateful for even the rotest of rote office work they have been given.
“It sure beats washing cars,” said Landon Crider, 24, the firm’s soft-spoken runner.
He would know: he spent several years, while at Georgia State and in the months after graduation, scrubbing sedans at Enterprise Rent-a-Car. Before joining the law firm, he was turned down for a promotion to rental agent at Enterprise — a position that also required a bachelor’s degree — because the company said he didn’t have enough sales experience.
His college-educated colleagues had similarly limited opportunities, working at Ruby Tuesday or behind a retail counter while waiting for a better job to open up.
“I am over $100,000 in student loan debt right now,” said Megan Parker, who earns $37,000 as the firm’s receptionist. She graduated from the Art Institute of Atlanta in 2011 with a degree in fashion and retail management, and spent months waiting on “bridezillas” at a couture boutique, among other stores, while churning out office-job applications.
“I will probably never see the end of that bill, but I’m not really thinking about it right now,” she said. “You know, this is a really great place to work.”
A lot of young people have sure gotten a lot of terrible advice over the past couple decades. Any other industry that committed this kind of massive, multi-billion-dollar fraud would rightly have its leaders in jail.
City Mouse, Suburb Mouse
Thoughts on the Left’s war on suburbia, from Lileks.
Human-Robot Relations
Nice to see Clara doing other than space stuff.
Remember, Only The Police Can Be Trusted With Weapons
As the women’s attorney told the Los Angeles Times: “The problem with the situation is it looked like the police had the goal of administering street justice and in so doing, didn’t take the time to notice that these two older, small Latina women don’t look like a large black man.” This could be written off as a sad fluke, except that 25 minutes later different officers opened fire on a different truck — once again getting key details wrong. Can’t officers at least check the license plate, and issue a warning, before opening fire?
“Nobody trains police officers to look for one of their own,” said Maria Haberfeld, a police-training professor at John Jay College in New York, according to the Web site News One. “I wouldn’t want to be in their shoes and I don’t think anybody else would.” We all understand the situation. But saying that we wouldn’t want to be “in their shoes” is no excuse for such dangerous behavior. The police wouldn’t excuse a member of the public for misusing a firearm, regardless of how stressed out that person felt.
News One also published the photograph of a gray Ford truck in the Los Angeles area with a hand-made “Don’t Shoot, Not Dorner, Thank You” poster on the back window. T-shirts and bumper stickers have popped up to similar effect. Those are funny in a dark way, but police ought to recognize how poorly this reflects on them and their strategies. It’s sad when people are more worried about the police than they are about a murderer on the loose.
It’s especially sad when they (or at least many of their leaders) declare that they should have a monopoly on “assault weapons.”
Voter Fraud
It’s not a big deal.
But remember, it doesn’t exist. Because the Democrats say so.
In Defense Of Alex Baldwin
Really. He has a fundamental constitutional right to be a racially bigoted rear orifice. The notion of “hate crimes” is a politically correct abomination, and one that I hope the SCOTUS will resolve at some point.
Income Inequality
[Update a few minutes later]
This sentence encapsulates why this president is such a disaster economically: “The President thinks he can redistribute income without stifling economic growth.”
Universal Pre-School
…is bad for everyone.
Well, except for pre-school teachers.
This is one of the stupider ideas (among many stupid ones) in the presidents SOTU.
[Update a while later]
Note that there’s a bonus point in the link. School in general is a waste of time for most kids.
New Gun Laws
Could they spark massive civil disobedience?
The political class would do well to recall (if they’re sufficiently educated to have ever learned it) what it was that sparked the first American Revolution:
In obedience to your Excellency’s commands, I marched on the evening of the 18th inst. with the corps of grenadiers and light infantry for Concord, to execute your Excellency’s orders with respect to destroying all ammunition, artillery, tents, &c., collected there, which was effected, having knocked off the trunnions of three pieces of iron ordnance, some new gun carriages, a great number of carriage wheels burnt, a considerable quantity of flour, some gunpowder and musket balls, with other small articles thrown into the river. Notwithstanding we marched with the utmost expedition and secrecy, we found the country had intelligence or strong suspicion of our coming, and fired many signal guns, and rung the alarm bells repeatedly; and were informed, when at Concord, that some cannon had been taken out of the town that day, that others, with some stores, had been carried three days before …
This, not hunting, despite all of the nonsensical rhetoric about the latter, is the purpose of the Second Amendment.