The problem isn’t racism (it rarely is, or at least it is much more rarely than it’s proclaimed to be). It’s tribalism. And the Left seems to cocoon itself much more.
Minimum Wage Hikes
Everything we don’t know about them:
It wouldn’t be all that surprising if a small hike in the minimum wage had little effect on unemployment. But that doesn’t mean that you can extrapolate that result to very high minimums, like the Sea-Tac law, which hiked the local minimum wage by more than 50 percent from a level that was already well above the national average. To illustrate the problem, imagine raising the minimum wage by a penny. It’s extremely doubtful that anyone would fire workers in order to save 40 cents a week. But you’d be foolish to conclude that it would therefore be safe to raise the minimum wage to $100 an hour. The size of the increase matters.
Quantity has a quality all its own.
Another Dumb Space Piece
If it weren’t for that fiasco at The American Spectator yesterday, this would take the prize for the week, if not the month.
After reading this "Billionaires' Space Club" piece, I can only assume Slate's editors are taking this week off. http://t.co/eZFGoyLofB
— Jeff Foust (@jeff_foust) December 30, 2014
Statins
A long piece about the science wars. Answer: we still don’t really know, but I’m avoiding them.
The War In Iraq
Unlike us, Iran is in it to win it.
But Barack Obama (and the Democrats in general) don’t like the idea of the U.S. “winning wars.” They just like to “end” them. Unless they’re wars on Fox News, or Republicans.
The “Affordable” Care Act
The very name of the law was a calculated lie:
Gruber said that Obamacare had no cost controls in it and would not be affordable in an October 2009 policy brief, presented here exclusively by TheDC. At the time, Gruber had already personally counseled Obama in the Oval Office and served on Obama’s presidential transition team. Obama, meanwhile, told the American people that their premiums would go down dramatically.
“The problem is it starts to go hand in hand with the mandate; you can’t mandate insurance that’s not affordable. This is going to be a major issue,” Gruber admitted in an October 2, 2009 lecture, the transcript of which comprised the policy brief.
“So what’s different this time? Why are we closer than we’ve ever been before? Because there are no cost controls in these proposals. Because this bill’s about coverage. Which is good! Why should we hold 48 million uninsured people hostage to the fact that we don’t yet know how to control costs in a politically acceptable way? Let’s get the people covered and then let’s do cost control.”
So, they were consistent.
The Climate-Change Debate
The Lost Colony Of Roanoke
…has apparently been found. Including the body of Virginia Dare. I discussed this in the book.
[Update a while later]
Being told that this is a fake article. If so, too bad. It read as credible. It does seem to be a dubious source, though.
Common Core And Campus Sexual-Assault Policies
Here‘s the link to the George Will column she cites.
Jessica Chastain
…buys the BS about SLS/Orion, sadly.