Category: Commentary

Why Welfare is Good

Published by NiteMayr on October 31, 2008

It Benefits the country to keep the poor fed and clothed to keep them from falling further down the line and either dying or turning to violent crime.

Why is that a hard concept for you to understand? The lazy or the unwilling don’t look at what some people think is tough love and say “I’ll straighten up and go to DeVry and get a good paying job” they say “I’ll rob someone who can’t fight back” or “I’ll just give up”

It’s not a difficult sociological concept, Welfare (and the associated programs) may have it’s share of able bodied folks who could be working and are just gaming the system, but that’s the price we pay to avoid the creation of a massive underclass that would eat society from below.

It’s OUR society, not YOUR society, you may not like sharing the world with the poor and unmotivated, but they are still there and you can either keep them penned up in social housing and ensconced in the labyrinthine coils of the Bureaucracy or they can be on their own, hungry and motivated.

Welfare, it’s what keeps “The Poor” from becoming “The Hungry”

NiteMayr

And How exactly will these laws be enforced Sarah?

Published by NiteMayr on October 27, 2008

It would have turned into a boon for trial lawyers. Again, thankfully with the existing laws we have on the books, they better be enforced. We won’t stand for anything but that. We won’t stand for any discrimination in the workplace – that there isn’t any discrimination in America.

Palin: I’m absolutely for equal pay for equal work. The Ledbetter pay act – it was gonna turn into a boon for trial lawyers who, I believe, could have taken advantage of women who were many, many years ago who would allege some kind of discrimination. Thankfully, there are laws on the books, there have been since 1963, that no woman could be discriminated against in the workplace in terms of anything, but especially in terms of pay. So, thankfully we have the laws on the books and they better be enforced.
Couric: The Ledbetter act sort of lengthens the time a woman can sue her company if she’s not getting equal pay for equal work. Why should a fear of lawsuits trump a woman’s ability to do something about the fact that women make 77 cents for every dollar a man makes. And that’s today.

Palin: There should be no fear of a lawsuit prohibiting a woman from making sure that the laws that are on the books today are enforced. I know in a McCain-Palin administration we will not stand for any measure that would result in a woman being paid less than a man for equal work.

Couric: Why shouldn’t the Ledbetter act be in place? You think it would result in lawsuits brought by women years and years ago. Is that your main problem with it?

Palin: It would have turned into a boon for trial lawyers. Again, thankfully with the existing laws we have on the books, they better be enforced. We won’t stand for anything but that. We won’t stand for any discrimination in the workplace – that there isn’t any discrimination in America.

I’m not clear on what she thinks her opinion is here, she believes that discrimination is happening, and that it should be redressed but decries the use of lawyers to do anything about it. What exactly is she saying; strong belief that it is bad will put an end to it? Wishing really hard is enough to overcome the problem? I think that this may be the most self-evident quote from Sarah that puts to light her vacuous nature and over-reliance on “supernatural” solutions over practical ones. Really, strong belief is not enough to resolve practical problems Sarah.

It’s somewhat clear that she understands the aim of the Ledbetter Act, but believes that it would have made a mint for the hated “Lawyers” but says nothing about what it would do for Women.

Project Much?

Published by NiteMayr on October 27, 2008

The environMENTAL wackos are stooping to tactics of fear yet again, now trying to tell us we’re “too stupid” to understand that they want to screw us over with higher sanitation and energy costs while crippling the economy.

Yes, this is the ultimate goal of the the Scientists who predict envionmental collapse; they want to put their hands in your pockets. They have a vested interest in taking cash out of your hands and putting it into their pockets.

It is easy to look at someone else’s opinion and just say, well you’re crazy and want to steal my gold, so I don’t have to listen to what you say. Why not? If you do nothing, then die, what’s the harm? Even if the Scientists are correct and in 50 years New York is under a couple of meters of water, how does that affect you? It’s not like you’ll care, you’ll just pick up and move, problem solved.

Right?

It wouldn’t be so much of a problem if it wasn’t for geologists (working for oil and mineral firms) and economics professors getting in on the action to tell us how foolish those guys are. If there is any justification for the person quoted above to just say it’s all hooey, they’ll take it. If Ming the Merciless himself spring forth from the pages of Flash Gordon and pronounced that Global Warming is Hooey, you’d have half the pundits telling us how while Merciless, Ming has run a whole Empire and knows something about taking care of planets. You’d have people fete’ing Ming at Values Voters summits, saying how he’s Right With God because believes in Dominion of Nature.

It’s that very phrase “Right With God” that drives a great deal of denyers to varying degrees. There is this belief that humanity is so small in the world that there is no way that the Actions of a few billion people who consume gigatons of resources each year could affect the health of the Planet as a whole. Just as God is so vast you can’t see or understand it; the Planet (as God’s special little playpen) is beyond Human Ken and therefore we can’t do anything to hurt or heal it, right?

To Draw it down to Numbers

Published by NiteMayr on October 23, 2008

An American Carol Week Number One (1,639 Screens):

$3,656,000

1,639

$2,231

$3,656,000

Sicko Week Number One (441 Screens):

$4,501,712

441

$10,208

$4,616,786

There has been alot of noise about “Real Americans” and “Real America” these past couple of days. The McCain campaign makes much of the fact that their supports represent the silent majority or the moral majority of the Country. The Down-home Salt of the earth that make up the real body of the electorate. The Authoritarian Right would have you believe that Liberals make up a tiny black-hearted exceptional bump in the world, and that the Rock-Ribbed Conservatives are in the Majority (while simlutaneously telling us about how they are persecuted).

These discussions are sometimes referred to as culture wars, expressed in purchasing patterns and behaviors. I can think of no better illustration of how North American people are really split than their viewing habits. They have to pay to see these films, they sometimes have to drive over some distance to go there, more than television, movie habits reflect the will and tastes of the affluent west and these numbers don’t lie.

People in the Western World ARE Liberals. They are Liberals by choice and in vast numbers, and if anyone tells you otherwise, they are deluded and foolish. Now if only they could vote that way too.

Oh, and in case you don’t know, An American Carol lasted two weeks in Theatres and Sicko, 13.

The Canadian Dollar is a Petrodollar

Published by NiteMayr on October 17, 2008

This is a chart of the value of the Canadian Loonie Versus the US Dollar

This chart illustrates the price of oil in the same basic period.

Can you see the shape of these two charts. The Value of the Loonie is tied directly to the price of Oil, it’s our most valuable resource in terms of trading power and currency value. It’s about time that the Government took a hard look at whether it is a smart idea to let the Oil Companies continue to control a resource that truly sets Canada’s place in the world market.

How Voter ID Requirements Disenfranchised my Wife

Published by NiteMayr on October 15, 2008

I’ve lived in London for about 8 months now, I contacted the Federal Government and Service Canada to make sure my address was up to date so that I would show on the Voter Rolls for my local riding (to ensure that I could vote, ya know). As it turns out, calling and having certified information on hand and then confirming using a special code sent to me registered mail is not enough to update computer records to show my correct address (which is why I used to leave my “Government Address” at my ‘rents house, as it was easier than Navigating the Federal Beauraucracy). All of that said, I was assured that I could vote as long as I brought along ID confirming I lived in the Riding.

Of course, since my wife doesn’t get mail at the house, she is a non-person in this riding.

So she missed out on her first ever visit to the Polls.

It was painless for me to get going, but I couldn’t affirm my own wife’s address, and since we don’t really know anyone in the Riding.

Yeah.

It sucks.

The lesson here is to make sure that you get mail at home, even if you don’t pay the bills and ensure that you are a person who can vote in Canada.

Oh, yeah, and you need Picture ID with your address on it or accompanying something with your address on it to vote. Picture ID.

You know, the kind that people rail against in the States, you know what ID works in Ontario though? Your Government Health Card, that gets you free Health care.

It’s good how that works out, free health care and the right to vote all in one.

We Trashed-Out

Published by NiteMayr on October 6, 2008

This is a long-form response to this discussion on Metafilter (since I don’t want to sign in to yet another website this AM)

At 5:30AM August 22nd 2007, after a couple weeks of selling and giving away our stuff, and loading a trailer over the past two days we thought that it would take us about 2 hours to finish getting rid of the stuff in our house. Over the next 6 hours we would struggle to get the last remains of our lives out of the town house we had lived in the entire time we live in the United States. Hopelessly in debt and under the schedule gun, we had left the house empty but dirty. We had filled entire dumpster with what we couldn’t give away along with the area around it (with beds and furniture) and a trailer incorrectly filled with the most precious things we could bring with us. We had sweated through the last remaining bits of our home and still had several hundred miles of driving ahead of us, after my last “day” at the office.

When we did the same in Canada march 1st 2002, we had used the 14 foot long truck from U-Haul and had still left most of our furniture behind to be taken by a nice polish family, along with several computers, a whole kitchen and a whole hall closet full of “stuff”. When we finally arrived in the United States, we had only what we could carry in our luggage with us. It had taken us 8 hours to clean out our house and the friend I had promised to pay for coming to help us showed up after 7 of them. We had needed his help badly and he expected to be paid the full amount for his minimal work. I was too tired to disagree and he happily took his money after doing almost nothing. He was unemployed at the time, having lost his job in the same downsize that had taken my entire office out.

When we moved into the Apartment we would eventually leave in 2002, we had the contents of one room. It was all we had in the world. Enough “stuff” to fill one room. My old roommate cleaned out the bits we had left behind and gave it to me in March of 1998. We sat in a restaurant and shared the last meal we ever would, I haven’t seen that roommate again, and neither have most of the people we both knew. In this case, Jen and I trashed out a friendship.

When I left my first apartment in 1996, I left behind all of the goods that my parent’s had gifted to me to make apartment life better, my desk, my furniture, cutlery, a vacuum cleaner, dishes, a microwave and random things. All left, all listed with prices and resale vales to cover a bill my old landlord had given me for a backed up toilet. 80 dollars. The landlord had rejected the notion that I be allowed to have Jen stay overnight or on the weekends, she was living with me, but the landlord had wanted her to pay rent while sleeping in my one room. She moved into her own place, but visited frequently, the landlord felt she was over enough to pay rent (how many times have you heard that line from a parent) and so he actually called the police over it. The police asked me if I wanted to charge the landlord with harassment and urged me to move. I moved.

When we move on, we leave some of our stuff behind, its inevitable. We live anywhere long enough and we leave an indellible mark, beyond the stains, on a place. That townhome in Eugene might not have the pencil marks on the underside of the counters anymore, but it probably still feels like a home that as loved. When I leave the condo i live in now, it will probably feel like leaving home again. Sometimes a trash-out is the only way to say goodbye to home.

Dear Candidates: The Copyright Pledge – The NDP Response

Published by NiteMayr on October 5, 2008

I sent this letter to all of the local Candidates:

Good Day,

Earlier in September I contact you for your opinions on various subjects, as a content producer and consumer I am affected strongly by both ends of the copyright debate, if something I produce is reproduced without my consent and proper attribution, consumers of my content will not always be aware of the value I bring them and potential income in the future from said content is lost. As a consumer, I feel very strongly that I should be entitled to fair-use protections and archiving without fear of reprisal from Government or Non-Government organizations.

I lived south of the Border from 2002-2007 and was constantly reminded of the American Digital Millennium Copyright Act and litigious corporations, even my day to day work was affected, if a graphic I produced was too similar to something found on the Internet, I was often felt coerced to change it, for fear of a copyright claim against my employer. The Balance between consumers and distributes in severely tipped in the favor of the distributor in the case of the DMCA. I use the term distributor, because DMCA claims are oftent he work of a content distributor and not the producer or creator of a given item or content.

Mr. Prentice’s Copyright Act appears to be cut from the same cloth I would like very much to see candidates from our local riding take a pledge (as written by Michael Geist, respected author and opinion journalist on the matter) to avoid the same Copyright Pitfalls that have befallen our neighbour to the south.

Will you commit to a balanced approach to copyright reform that reflects the views of all Canadians by pledging:

1.    To respect the rights of creators and consumers.

2.    Not to support any copyright bill that undermines or weakens the Copyright Act’s users rights.

3.    To fully consult with Canadians before introducing any copyright reform bill and to conduct inclusive, national hearings on any tabled bill.

Vous engagerez-vous dans une approche équilibrée de la réforme sur le droit d’auteur qui reflète les opinions de tous les Canadiens et Canadiennes en promettant:

1. de respecter les droits des créateurs et des consommateurs

2. de ne pas supporter tout projet de loi sur le droit d’auteur détruisant ou diminuant les droits des utilisateurs face à la Loi sur le droit d’auteur

3. De consulter pleinement les Canadiens et Canadiennes avant d’introduire toute réforme sur le droit d’auteur et de tenir des audiences nationales inclusives sur tout projet de loi proposé.

Again, I thank your for your time,

Merci pour le tout tes temps,
—

Kevin Wardrop

The Irene Mathyssen Campaign Responds:

Dear Kevin,

I am writing on behalf of MP Irene Mathyssen in response to your email. Irene wanted me to please let you know that she signed Professor Geist’s pledge on Saturday October 4th.

Irene understands the importance of protecting both the creators and consumers. Several members of her campaign team are independent artists, including Penn Kemp a poet, and independent publisher and producer of CD’s and books, and as a consumer herself, Irene recognizes that both parties need balanced protection.

Finally, Irene also asked that I please let you know she is also opposed to “bandwidth throttling” by ISPs and would-if re-elected-be working to bring forward legislation to ban this practice.

Regards,
Shawn Lewis
Media & Communications
Irene Mathyssen Campaign

One can only admire a campaign that coordinates a response and adds a note about bandwidth throttling. Thank-you Shawn Lewis, I appreciate your (and your Candidate’s) time.

For more on the Pledge itself, I recommend visiting Michael Geist’s blog

There really are some racist bastards out there

Published by NiteMayr on October 3, 2008

According to parents and students in Greg Howard’s seventh-grade social studies class, Howard on Friday, Sept. 26 asked the class a question regarding Obama’s call for change, and proceeded to write out what the letters C-H-A-N-G-E stood for.

“She told me that he wrote on the board ‘Can You Help A (expletive) Get Elected, and then laughed about it,” said Shelia Christian, a mother of one of Howard’s students.

Marianna teacher ‘told students what ‘CHANGE’ stood for’

As if this isn’t enough; this comment was added:

Posted by ( leroy ) on October 03, 2008 at 9:00 am

LOOKEY MOM I FIGGURED OUT WHAT THAT THERE CAPS LOCK IS FER.

I’M NOT FEELING ENOUGH OUTRAGE HERE I GUESS TO DO THIS UP PROPER WE NEED TO GET AL SHARPTON AND OLE’ JESSIE INVOLVED.

The Teacher was trying to make a joke (if the facts are presented correctly) a poor joke that might have been accepted from the mouth of a comedian, but not to a bunch of middle-school kids, right? That being said, if the semi-anonymous comments on the article are accurate, the teacher in question (Greg Howard) has been making loaded comments for a while now, while protected by the complacency of the school administration.

Myself, I’m not outraged, people say stupid crap all the time and laugh or tell inappropriate jokes, that’s the way of the world. I don’t think any one group is inferior to me because of how or to whom the are born; but I will certainly crack jokes at the expense of an individual or a group based on stereotypes, that’s kind of how humor works. Fat people like to eat, Hard Core Christians are willfully ignorant, smart people are nerdy and so on. Broad stereotypes form the foundation of some humor and I can’t condemn anyone for using them for humor’s sake. I can’t, however, condone slurs for the sake of a joke, especially to kids.

So Greg, I don’t envy you, you’ve put your foot right in your mouth, it’s time to either face the music and step down or weather the storm (if you can) and work for forgiveness. However, if you have an axe to grind with Obama, and this is how you express it; you probably deserve what’s coming.

From a web article the looks like parody about Toby Keith Backing Obama:

PAarmyWife See Profile I’m a Fan of PAarmyWife I’m a fan of this user permalink

Toby Keith is a country singer with an extreme conservative base. I just came from his concert tonight and just stumbled upon this possible fact that Keith supports Obama. IF this is true, and a big IF, he can be certain that backs will turn and it’s possible he will lose some of the very fan base he has created over the past few years built upon conservative principles. My husband is a military man and is not very fond of country music but has always respected Keith for what he has done for the troops and his outspoken patriotism. This would be a huge disappointment to my family if he was no backing a piece of filth. But then again, to mainstream Hollywood, it’s the “cool thing” to do. I have always assumed Keith was above all the Hollywood hype.

Did she call Obama a piece of filth?

The Pat Robertson Prayer Challenge

Published by NiteMayr on October 2, 2008

In conclusion, it is my opinion that we have between 75 and 120 days before the Middle East starts spinning out of control. If there was ever a time for fervent prayer, it is now. Prayer can change the course of history! The Bible says, “Seek righteousness, seek humility. … that you may be hid in the day of the Lord’s wrath.” “… the fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much.”

The believing prayers of tens of thousands of God’s people can change the hearts of the leaders of Russia and Iran. God can cause situations to arise which will save Israel. He is Almighty. With God all things are possible!

With that in mind, I urge you to fervently seek God’s intervention in the following areas:

Pray that God’s mighty angels would surround and protect our nation in these perilous times;

Pray for unity among the body of Christ as we intercede for our nation and our world;

Pray that America’s leadership will seek godly wisdom as they face critical events in the weeks and months ahead;

Pray for the Holy Spirit to sweep across the globe, preparing hearts to accept Jesus and enter God’s Kingdom before tragic events unfold;

Pray for God to change the hearts of leaders in Russia, Iran, and other nations who wish to do harm to Israel.

Hopefully, our Lord will intervene and head off the disaster that seems to be approaching. Let us pray together. With God all things are possible!

http://www.patrobertson.com/pressreleases/PatRobertsonRegardingGeorgia.asp

Okay folks, here it is. The Pat Robertson Prayer Challenge, this is where the rubber meets the road on Christianity, Prayer and the Intercession of Faith.

As a Celebrant, you can say to the flock, “Pray for X or if you don’t U will happen” if X happens you can say “You Prayed well and have been rewarded” and if Y happens you can say “You didn’t show enough faith, next time you will pray harder or give more of yourself”. As long as X is easy “No Fire Demons come From the Sky” and Y is likely “Someone’s house will Burn Down” it means that the celebrant can effectively use statistics and basic common sense to look like a conduit for Gods words. When in all likelihood they are just an astute observer of statistics and human behavior.

The Prayer Challenge

Between today and January 1st, Pat Robertson says that the Middle East will erupt in chaos and a limited nuclear exchange may occur unless his followers pray for Russian and Iran to “back down” if they don’t he can say “See, your prayers saved Israel” and if they do he can say “You didn’t Pray hard enough” or if Barack Obama is elected President and they do he can say “It’s your fault for electing that man, this is your Punishment”

What about a Third outcome? What it American invades Iran and touches off a real war with Russia?

What if American forces step in among the Balkans?

What if Isreal bombs Iran?

Prayer against a massively negative outcome is easy, especially if it is unlikely. Praying that a comet won’t hit the world is easy, and likely to come true. Prayer that you won’t get wet on a rainy day is stupid, as you are going to get wet on a rainy day if you go out without rain gear on. So to is this prayer easy, it’s highly unlikely that either Iran or Russia would provoke a nuclear war “Just because” and let’s face it, if the rhetoric of our politicians was enough to provoke a real war, Iran would have bombed Isreal years ago.

If Prayer is REAL and the world is on the edge of massive nuclear war, then it is likely that it WILL happen, because as you know, America has fallen to the forces of evil already:

We have insulted God at the highest level of our government. Then, we say, “Why does this happen?” It is happening because God Almighty is lifting His protection from us.
Once that protection is gone, we are vulnerable because we are a free society.

http://www.patrobertson.com/PressReleases/TerroristAttack.asp