Again, I will be out for the day. In fact, I will likely not be back until very late so I doubt anything will be put up for the rest of the day. You should check out Andrea’s blog, Curiously Clever, she’s putting up a lot of stuff these days. She also just started a new website, Nice Atheist Girl. We just got the basics set up, but you can at least see the header—assuming the NFS is working. Otherwise, you’re on your own.
It does seem that I’ve gotten caught up on the major stuff that was cluttering up my browser. Now I’ll have to start drilling down into my “ideas” folder. For now, we have these:
- Josh Barro wrote a great article at Business Insider, Here’s the Conversation We Should Really Be Having About Obamacare and Part-Time Work. In it, he argues for a repeal of the employer mandate. He indicates that it would actually make the law more progressive. I am with him on this, but there is a larger issue that his pro-business orientation blinds him to. All the government subsidies for low wage workers simply give the businesses with the worst treatment of workers a bit of a competitive advantage. This is one of the reasons why I think we should have a single payer system. It would level the business playing field.
Regardless of the details, it is harder and harder to see Barro as having any overlap with the Republican Party. To me, he’s slightly more liberal than the New Democrats. Check out what he has to say about how the Republican Party approaches Obamacare:
Republicans like to warn that Obamacare is pushing droves of people into part-time work.
House Speaker John Boehner has said “millions” of Americans can only find part-time work because of the law. Majority Leader Eric Cantor says America’s economy is now a “part-time job economy.” Sen. Ted Cruz used the talking point over and over again during his long Senate floor speech about defunding Obamacare.
This talking point is a lie…
The irony of this discussion is that some of the biggest beneficiaries from the ACA are the same low-wage, uninsured workers whose interests Republicans purport to defend when they complain about the law’s effects on work hours…
A conversation about improving Obamacare—perhaps someday, Republicans will be interested in having that conversation, instead of undermining and demagoguing the law at every turn—should include repealing the employer mandate so the law can have a positive effect on labor markets instead of a modest negative one. But even if the mandate isn’t repealed, America won’t turn into a “part-time work economy.”
I couldn’t have said it more forcefully myself.
- Charles Pierce has a great comment over at Esquire, Uh-Oh, Toto:
As you may have gathered, I’m a serious agnostic on this whole “Republican civil war” business. I believe it’s merely a fight over tactics; the whole party shares the same crackpot ideas that got the country into the mess out of which the current president has had to pull it in the first place. I do not believe that there are Republican “moderates” of substantial power to make any difference, or to change that fundamental dynamic. I think Steve LaTourette’s new kick-the-Tea-Party-In-The-Balls PAC is little more than a way to attempt to empower supply-side fantasts and deregulation junkies and privatization fanatics without bothering Jesus with the whole business.
I always think people who agree with me are smart.
- I’m sure you’ve seen North Carolina GOP precinct chairman Don Yelton on The Daily Show this week. If not, check out, GOP Precinct Chairman Says Voter ID Will Hurt “Lazy Blacks,” Then Resigns, which includes the original clip. But I feel sorry for Yelton. I’m sure in the extremely homogeneous environment in which he lives, what he said was perfectly fine. It calls into question the entire North Carolina Republican Party establishment, regardless of how much they may now wish to deny it. If that kind of behavior was unacceptable with them, he never would have felt it was acceptable on national television. Anyway, I think this skit from That Mitchell and Web Look might be helpful to Yelton in determining what exactly is racist:
- I came upon a great Latin phrase recently, Inter arma enim silent leges. It means, “In times of war, the law falls silent.” Like so many great things, it was first written by Cicero, although in the slightly different form, Silent enim leges inter arma. I think it is an important phrase for our country because we are now always at war. I think we can all accept that during trying times we might have to put up with things that we normally wouldn’t stand for. During World War II, for example, there was rationing. Fine. But should our rights to privacy and security in our own homes be brushed aside because we are now and forever more dropping bombs on civilians in Afghanistan and Pakistan?
Have a good day!
On this day in 1842, the great Russian war painter 
Let’s start this by stating the obvious: Back up all your important files, NOW! Being more specific… Just backing up your files sounds simple enough but some aspects of correctly doing so are not so obvious… and if you are competent in doing so, it’s not likely to be the case for your neighbor, family member or co-worker. Please warn them and help them with the process.