Muffin Bottoms [not] Just another WordPress weblog

10/01/2010

Economic Analysis Of a MOST Macro Kind.

Filed under: Mundane Or Sublime,OpEd,Tech — admin @ 8:17 am

I saw the following astute and alert analysis on a friend’s Facebook page today and replied in kind.

In my opinion, there is nothing wrong with looking into the minimum wage in CT to see if it helps people get a job or somehow impairs them from getting a job in CT. It is worth a study. It appears that this may be a taboo entitlement situation to many. It could be possible to keep those at the present minimum wage and hire the new people at a lower minimum wage. I am no expert… I just look at things from different points of view.

I agree with you sort of!

The biggest problem was on or about 1992 when “industry” took a similar look and saw that union jobs had hit a magic 16. The average person with 16 years in a factory was making 16 dollars per hour.

Bosses all over this country decided they needed to cut that down to 10/hr at the end of someone’s career, and only minimum wage at the beginning.

Except for the bosses’ bosses; NO ONE liked that idea.

So instead they downsized/outsourced/closed every single plant in this nation one by one. They hired “middlemen” at about 15 per hour to lead entire teams of people making just a dollar or two more per hour than the minimum wage instead of the 16 that they panicked about in the first place.

Now that almost everyone makes just a couple bucks more than minimum wage they’re panicking again.

Do we want the minimum wage to be only 2/3 what it was last year?

1/3?

This is a very cynical proposition.

These are most cynical times.

Ironically, President Clinton pushed through a pay increase for each new President (Bush then Obama then who…) of about 3/2’s.

At a time when the US economy must shrink 2/3’s if it will survive???

We are in grave danger.

12/16/2009

Who Remembers When G-d Supposedly Said He’d Strike Oral Roberts Dead??

Filed under: Academic,Food,Humor,Mundane Or Sublime,OpEd,Tech — admin @ 4:24 am

Who remembers when Oral Roberts said he needed to raise a certain amount of millions or G-d was going to strike him dead?

And Who remembers when he claimed he met G-d near a burning bush and was told he had a stay of execution and had until February instead to raise the last million or two that he was short.

I am not bringing this up just to run a dirty old rotten scoundrel through the mud even more immediately after he actually died.

Mostly I’m bringing it up because you might have forgotten.

I will never judge him, and since I didn’t even send him 35 cents, it was easy to forgive him; but I will never forget.

And I aim to make sure you don’t either.

Surely the most famous of all the Lord’s speaking to Charismatics is the famous, “Oral Roberts Death Threat Prophecy” a preposterous and fabricated supposed “Word from the Lord.” Roberts told his nationwide audience in 1987 that God had threatened to call him home if he couldn’t raise 8 million dollars by his creditor’s deadline. Whether or how that threat might have been carried out the world will never know because Roberts received a last minute reprieve in the form of a large check from a Florida dog track owner, as you remember. Two years later when Roberts was forced to close his massive, multi-million dollar City of Faith Medical Center anyway, in spite of the 8 million dollars, he asked God, “Why?” And Oral Roberts said God spoke to him and God said,

“I had you build the City of Faith large enough to capture the imagination of the entire world, about the merging of My healing streams of Prayer and Medicine. I did not want this revelation localized in Tulsa, however, and the time has come when I want this concept of merging My healing streams to be known to all people and to go into all future generations.” So said God. Roberts said, “It is clearly in my spirit, as I have ever heard Him, the Lord gave me an impression, ‘You and your partners have merged prayer and medicine for the entire world, for the Church World and for all generations.’ And then He said, ‘It is done.’ And then I asked, ‘Is that why after eight years you are having us close the hospital and after eleven years the medical school?’ And God said, ‘Yes, the mission has been accomplished in the same way that after three years of public ministry, my Son said on the cross, Father, it is finished!'”

[ref]=[ http://www.sermonindex.net/modules/articles/index.php?view=article&aid=2178 ]

11/13/2009

From a Soldier To A Senator

Filed under: Academic,Mundane Or Sublime,News,OpEd — admin @ 4:21 pm

OK, this is mostly an open letter to Senator McCain, but Lieberman and a few other menaces to society should listen up too.

Dear Senator McCain,

I’m addressing this to you but it’s for many others as well.

As a veteran, I’m speaking soldier to soldier to you, but I’m also speaking soldier to civilian to so many other people in your camp who believe we should not give a fair trial to the terror suspects. Lastly, I’m speaking soldier to draft dodger to a few of the remaining people in your camp who feel the way you do.

You think it’s inconceivable? You think these human beings should not be tried in a court of law?

You think it sends a mixed message??? How much clearer can it be Mr McCain.

🙁

Or to quote my very first drill instructor ever, it’s that
simple, private! If freedom is worth fighting for, then it is worth
trying people in our courts of law under the laws that apply to them.
Have you never read up on Alien Tort? Have you never read the Amistad
decision, both majority and minority? Please do. Please get your head
out of your sphincter, stop running for office for a few precious minutes
and for once try to remember what it was like when YOU fought for the due
process you deserved as a citizen of the United States, as a human being
and as a soldier and warrior.

Can you not afford that same inalienable right to your enemies? I bet you
can’t. I can. I have that much confidence.

Or are you perhaps afraid that some of these horrible people will finger
you in their open court cases that you are so desperately and aggressively
blocking!!!

Maybe you had something to hide during 9/11? I’m NOT accusing you, I’m just
asking. Maybe you’re not really on the side against torture afterall. How
can you reconcile being against due process and for human rights?

How can you? Tell me this. I need to know.

09/28/2009

“If An Agent Knocks” Updated & Re-released

Filed under: Mundane Or Sublime,OpEd,Tech — admin @ 5:56 am

The Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) has reissued the pamphlet “If an Agent Knocks” – a document written for activists likely to be targeted by the FBI. For the first time in over a decade, this classic “know your rights” pamphlet has been updated with the most timely and relevant information available.

I advise all activists to take a small amount of time to read this pamphlet. This is among the best investments you can make as an activist.

From the CCR description: “This guide includes both the timeless advice included in the original version and extensive updates to reflect the current state of the law and law enforcement tools. It also includes a comprehensive discussion of today’s technology, including cell phones, e-mail and Web browsing.”

Download the PDF here.

To obtain a free print copy, please email iaak@ccrjustice.org.

09/12/2009

Small Brained Politics.

Filed under: Humor,Mundane Or Sublime,OpEd,Tech — admin @ 5:14 am

OK, healthcare discourse on Capitol Hill has left the realm of feisty and sailing into contentious, meanspirited, nasty and simple bad form.

While President Obama was addressing Congress, Senator Joe Wilson threw a tantrum that I thought was hurtful and actually demeaning to the wider base of his own party. Honestly, his outburst there hurt my feelings as an American. We are not just a bunch of yahoos frothing at the mouth, I promise. Who voted Wilson? What pretenses did win on? I’m sure if he shook hands all over his state promising to jump up and down flailing his arms around acting like Jim Carrey in “Dumb and Dumber” they probably would have voted the other guy.

Who remembers when Oliver North ran for office? Embarrassed Marines organized nationally around who could buy a house in Virginia quick enough to vote against him. People who owned a property there but had residency somewhere else inquired about switching in time as well.

Perhaps a similar migration into Wilson’s South Carolina district is in order, ousting this fringe lunatic at his very next reelection bid. Actually, I think he’s campaigning already: for whoever else wants the position. Did you know he’s on the House Armed Services Committee, the Subcommittee on Military Personnel, the Committee on Education and Labor, and the Committee on Foreign Affairs? Again I must ask difficult questions such as “how on Earth did he get his colleagues to give him these positions?” I know for a fact he didn’t say “appoint me and I’ll wiggle around in my seat fidgeting and yelling silly stuff.”

I must not just pick on Wilson; he represents reaction in assuming that many mainstream Americans support him as such. This didn’t come out of nowhere.

Imagine for a moment you are a grade school child in Wilson’s congressional district (or anywhere for that matter) and your parent just told you you’ll be missing school tomorrow because they refuse to let you watch or discuss President Obama’s address to a chosen grade school. Or imagine if you’re in the grade school where he will speak. You’re disallowed from meeting him? Imagine looking back to a time when your parent stood up in a Joe Courtney or Chris Dodd town hall meeting and yelled out obnoxious things at the top of their lungs?  I thank G-d every day my mom & late father (both Republicans) lacked hatred/fear & taught me to think for myself. This hybrid of hateful Republicans is like a bad segment from Mike Judge’s movie “Idiocracy.”

03/16/2009

RELEASED: Issue 532 of Zine. (No Embargo)

Filed under: Academic,Humor,Music and Stuff,News,OpEd,Pop Culture,Tech — admin @ 3:55 am

atizine

RELEASED: Issue 532 of Zine. (No Embargo)

http://www.infomaniack.org/…

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