A Saturday morning open thread dedicated to young people making a difference.

Posted by: andy at 05:05 AM | Comments (122)
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Political tags - such as royalist, communist, democrat, populist, fascist, liberal, conservative, and so forth - are never basic criteria. The human race divides politically into those who want people to be controlled and those who have no such desire.

Posted by: Open Blogger at 05:04 AM | Comments (106)
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Yes. It's Friday. Drink up and get comfortably undressed. It's time for the ONT.

This headline grabbed my eye for obvious reasons. Disney Hotel Workers Answer To Electronic Whip. Oh yeah, I was thinking they were gettin' some kind of taser whip treatment but alas, it's just electronic monitoring. Can you imagine this at the Post Office? They'd have a friggin' riot!

Isabel Barrera, a Disneyland Hotel laundry worker for eight years, began calling the new system the "electronic whip" when it was installed last year. The name has stuck.

"I was nervous," said Barerra, who makes $11.94 an hour, "and felt that I was being controlled even more."

Measuring productivity is commonplace in the hotel industry, and manual tallies were kept in Disney hotels until last year. Disney says the electronic system, which it also uses at its Florida resort, is becoming more common at hotels, though I haven't found much evidence of that.

Employees in the Anaheim hotels are required to key in their ID when they arrive, and from then on, their production speed is displayed for all to see. For instance, the monitor might show that S. Lopez is working at an efficiency rate of 37% of expected production. The screen displays the names of several coworkers at once, with "efficiency" numbers in green for those near or above 100% of the expected pace, and red numbers for those who aren't as fast.

Posted by: CDR M at 06:05 PM | Comments (766)
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Adam Andrzejewski caught wind of Lech Walesa's expressed sympathies for the Occupiers and suspected he wasn't aware they were stuffed to the gills with Marxists and other assorted hard left types:

The Polish champion of freedom and liberty, founder of Solidarity, winner of the 1984 Nobel Peace Prize, and first President of modern Poland Lech Walesa had been rumored to possibly be traveling to New York to stand with Occupy Wall Street protesters. Press accounts reporting this “breathless” news had given all of us pause.

...

Using biggovernment.com plus other news sources, rapidly we painted an accurate picture of the groups training, leading, and organizing the “movement.” The movement is organized by anarchists, Code Pink, the American Communist movement, jihadists, anti-Israel, socialist, and anti- free enterprise interests. OWS folks are politically to the left of President Barack Obama.

At the Lech Walesa Institute Foundation in Warsaw, they were thankful to receive this information.

Based on our discussion and intervention, President Walesa is not going to get involved with the OWS. He is not comfortable with the “organizations” behind the movement. It was not a difficult discussion.

Not surprising. Lech Walesa knows a commie when he sees one:

This spring, when President Obama visited Poland, President Walesa refused to meet with him.

Posted by: andy at 04:40 PM | Comments (135)
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From ABC News:

The study of 358,403 Danish cell phone plan subscribers over 17 years -- the largest study of its kind -- found subscribers of 13 years or more faced the same cancer risk as non-subscribers.

"In general, our findings are in line with most of the epidemiological research that has been conducted to date," said Patrizia Frei of the Danish Cancer Society's Institute of Cancer Epidemiology, lead author of the study published today in the journal BMJ. "They are also in line with in vitro and in vivo studies that show no carcinogenic effects on the cellular level."

I'm not surprised. All microwave radiation does is jostle water molecules--it heats them up. For those who don't know, the type of radiation people are referring to when they're talking about radiation and cancer is ionizing radiation. Ionizing radiation is high-energy radiation that has the ability to cause damage to tissue by breaking DNA and killing cells or causing mutations. Microwave radiation is low energy, lower even than visible light. So a cancer link to to cell phone use has always been suspect.

Follow me on Twitter.

Posted by: rdbrewer at 03:55 PM | Comments (73)
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Why not?

To be certain, this is not a decision I have undertaken lightly; it comes only as the result of months of careful self-deliberation and dockside focus groups with the finest minds of contemporary conservative campaign strategy. Notwithstanding the surprising electoral vulnerability of Mr. Obama, our analyses have made abundantly clear that the current field of Republican challengers posess neither the intellectual acuity nor the deft touch for the common man needed to lead America into an inspiring new era of moderate bipartisan compromise. In the days ahead I will have much more to say about their shortcomings; but for now let me assure those millions of commonsense Republican voters who have yearned for a candidate who shares their values for stability, flexibility, and pedigree: rejoice, for your standard-bearer has arrived.

Thanks to twiceblessedmom.

Posted by: Ace at 03:25 PM | Comments (68)
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DETAILS OF ACCORD, AS THEY TRICKLE OUT:

* "GOOD NEIGHBOR POLICY" TO BE MODIFIED

* WORKING GROUPS ADMIT "MISTAKES" IN PREVIOUS IMPLEMENTATION OF DRUMMING RULES

* DRUMMERS'S OWN WORKING GROUP WILL ADVANCE NEW PROPOSAL TO LIMIT DRUMMING TO TWO HOURS PER DAY ON SITE, WITH ADDITIONAL DRUMMING TO OCCUR OFF-SITE

* UPDATE: FOUR HOURS PER DAY ON SITE

* DRUMMERS WILL CONTINUE DRUMMING DURING RUSH HOUR

BREAKING HARD...

EVEN MORE BREAKING NEWS: Accord on the precipice?

Last night's General Assembly meeting in Zuccotti Park was "one of most contentious ever," in large part due to a heated debate over whether the drummers at Occupy Wall Street should be given $8,000 from the movement's coffers to buy more drums and equipment. It seems some of the drums were stolen or vandalized, and the drummers asked the General Assembly to help them regroup. "We have worked for you! Appreciate us," one drummer told the crowd, but the appeal was denied, and the Huff Post's Craig Kanalley tweeted, "Drummer who didn't get money from GA tonight now yelling, cursing at members of GA." Meanwhile, another member of the drum corps was lashing out at the Community Board meeting.

"I am an occupier, I am a drummer, and, despite what they say, I am also a human being," Ashley Love, a young member of the OWS People of Color Working Group, told the packed Community Board meeting last night. Mother Jones reports that Love was met with booing when she informed the locals, "It's primarily a commercial area; not too many people live there. The majority of the drummers are people of color with low-income or no-income backgrounds, and Wall Street was built by slaves when they brought the Africans over here. The council people back then prohibited drumming because it was a way of protesting. It was a way of communication. And I just think you guys are scapegoating us."

Thanks to Jammie Wearing Fool for his updates on his dramatic, fast-moving story.

more...

Posted by: Ace at 01:27 PM | Comments (511)
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Did Rubio mislead people into believing, as the Washington Post insists he had, that his family had fled Cuba after Castro came to power?

No.

T Rubio's parents came to the US before then, in 1956. They remained in the US after Castro took over in 1959. They returned to Cuba for brief stints early on, before the country devolved into Soviet-style totalitarianism.

But the top of the story suggests Rubio himself has given this "dramatic account:" that "he was the son of exiles, he told audiences, Cuban Americans forced off their beloved island after 'a thug,' Fidel Castro, took power." (Update note: The story struck the word "dramatic").

However, the story doesn't cite one speech where Rubio actually said that.

To back up the lead, the Washington Post excerpts from a 2006 address in the Florida House where Rubio said “in January of 1959 a thug named Fidel Castro took power in Cuba and countless Cubans were forced to flee... Today your children and grandchildren are the secretary of commerce of the United States and multiple members of Congress...and soon, even speaker of the Florida House.”

The catch: If you listen to the speech, Rubio isn't just talking about those who specifically fled Cuba after Castro took power. He doesn't say that his parents fled Cuba. Instead, he was talking about "a community of exiles." That is: He was talking about all the Cubans who live in Miami.

...

Rubio's office has told both the Washinton Post, the St. Petersburg Times and The Miami Herald that his parents came to the United States prior to Castro taking power. And he has said it more than once. In the article we wrote last month about his pending autobiography, Rubio clearly told us his parents came here before Castro took power. He struggled to recall the year (this isn't in the story, it's in my notes) and said it was in "57 or 58 or 59."

When asked pointedly: Was it before the revolution? Rubio said it was before the revolution.

Rubio defends himself from this weaksauce here.

Video of him defending himself from this silly crap at The Right Scoop.

The guy who wrote this piece turns out to be an apologist to Castro who just happens to be writing a book on Rubio. Coming to a remainder bin near you.

In related non-news, the Washington Post never asked how the "Religion: Muslim" entry on Obama's Indonesian school application came about.

Posted by: Ace at 01:11 PM | Comments (48)
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Depressed? Via Hot Air, (actually, Truman North notes, it's been on this site's sidebar since this morning), an instant smile.

The organizers tried to limit drumming to two hours a day. Because a nearby school could not teach with all the racket. And a lot of protesters themselves objected to the all-night drumming marathons -- a lot of people couldn't sleep.

This did not go over well with the drummers. And then the issue went from drumming to money.

But the drums were fun. They brought in publicity and money. Many non-facilitators were infuriated by the decision and claimed that it had been forced through the General Assembly.

“They’re imposing a structure on the natural flow of music," said Seth Harper, an 18-year-old from Georgia. “The GA decided to do it ... they suppressed people’s opinions. I wanted to do introduce a different proposal, but a big black organizer chick with an Afro said I couldn’t.”

To Shane Engelerdt, a 19-year-old from Jersey City and self-described former “head drummer,” this amounted to a Jacobinic betrayal. “They are becoming the government we’re trying to protest," he said. "They didn’t even give the drummers a say ... Drumming is the heartbeat of this movement. Look around: This is dead, you need a pulse to keep something alive.”

The drummers claim that the finance working group even levied a percussion tax of sorts, taking up to half of the $150-300 a day that the drum circle was receiving in tips. “Now they have over $500,000 from all sorts of places,” said Engelerdt. “We’re like, what’s going on here? They’re like the banks we’re protesting."

Also an issue: Cleaning up after themselves. Some protesters will not do any cleaning. Other protesters will not even move their stuff so that the area can be cleaned. (Of course, when you put your stuff in a common pile, it quickly gets stolen.)

So there is some tension between the more conscientious and less conscientious among the protesters.

Which leads to this hysterical quote.

“When cleanups happen, people get mad,” Glaser said. “This is its own city. Within every city there are people who freeload, who make people’s lives miserable. We just deal with it. We can’t kick them out.”

I forget who it was who joked that the protesters were essentially learning the lessons of civilization as they built a society, and a politics, and a leadership structure on the fly. But maybe it's not just a joke. Here you have committed anarchists and Marxists learning about private property and externalities.

And a lot of about chronic freeloaders, and how they kind of suck.

Reliving The Arc of History: I may have been thinking of this Bryan Preston article.

The inevitable raids on their stuff by homeless addicts vomiting their way across the makeshift camps has already given rise to a kind of Occupy camp security, the most basic duty of a government. And note, one that isnÂ’t being performed well on our border, but the Occupiers donÂ’t care about that.
Next will come a kind of feudalism, as various Occupation (without vocation) voices vie for power and control and minions form factions. And after that, the revolution will become just another institution. ThatÂ’s the arc of history, being played out by college students who probably donÂ’t even know enough history to be able to grasp the irony of it all.

Until the Occupiers vault from their primitive state to a Leninist oligarchy (a process which should take another week or so), supposing they donÂ’t just dissolve once they realize that camping out in urban parks paid for by others is no way to go through life or feed yourself, letÂ’s enjoy their principled devotion to Luddism...

Posted by: Ace at 11:46 AM | Comments (382)
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What?

His previous statement was that he was against all abortions (no exceptions, including for rape and/or health of the mother), but then, asked about a hypothetical rape-pregnancy of a granddaughter, when on to say:

"It's not the government's role, or anyone else's role, to make that decision.... It ultimately gets down to a choice that that family or that mother has to make. Not me as president, not some politician, not a bureaucrat, it gets down to that family. And whatever they decide, they decide! I shouldn't try to tell them what decision to make."

Now, before getting to his new parsing of the question, it has to be noted that he did, in the Piers Morgan interview, attempt to say that Morgan was confusing two issues.

I don't think he was confusing two issues -- this is the issue -- but he did attempt to claim that.

Now Cain is saying that while his position is and always has been "pro life, from conception, no exceptions," he was "just trying to say" that the woman in this position might still seek an abortion, and it's not his role to tell her what to do.

This is the most bizarre statement on the issue I've ever heard. Cain is saying, if I have this right, that he's perfectly willing to criminalize abortion -- to make it illegal, to impose a criminal penalty on at least those who perform them (and possibly those who seek them) -- but that he also doesn't want to boss people around and tell them they shouldn't seek an illegal abortion.

That is, on the legal side of things, he wants it outlawed. On the moral suasion side of things, he suddenly takes the libertarian position that it isn't his "role" to tell that young woman what to do about her "choice."

I say this is bizarre because I know what the mainstream conservative Republican position is -- Yes, to criminalizing abortion, and also yes to telling women they shouldn't seek them.

I know the mainstream "conservative" Clintonesque Democratic position on this -- No, to criminalizing abortion, but "yes" to making abortion "safe, legal, and rare." That is, the fudge-the-difference Clinton position is basically that we shouldn't use "hard power" to reduce abortions -- no criminalization -- but we can use "soft power" to do so.

I know the liberal/hyperfeminist position -- no to criminalization, no to moral suasion against abortion. In fact, the liberal/hyperfeminist position is clearly to endorse/promote abortions.

Herman Cain is the first person I've ever heard say he'd use the "hard power" of criminalization of abortion but then flinch from using the "soft power" of advising/recommending against it. He'd make it illegal, but he'd leave the "choice" of whether to seek an illegal abortion to the mother and family in question?

Honestly, I don't know what he's saying, and frankly, I don't think he does, either. This is a pattern with him. It really seems that in whole swathes of important policy choices, he really hasn't given the matter much thought at all, and is grasping to cohere his thinking on these issues on the fly, during interviews.

Criminalizing abortions -- especially with this "no exceptions" stance -- does impose significant burdens, penalties, and risks on people. I know where pro-lifers stand on these negative consequences -- they support them. I've argued with no-exceptions pro-lifers about the case of rape, and while I disagree with their position, I can't say they haven't given the matter some thought. They are, at the end of the day, willing to say that a woman impregnated b a rapist should be forced by the state to carry her rapist's baby to term.

Now, that's a damned tough, absolutist position to take. But they do take it, and they plant their flag on that hill.

With Cain, it seems to be he's groping his way to find some wiggle-room in this position -- which is fine. He's a politician. It's what politicians do, seek wiggle-room.

But what's not fine is that he doesn't seem to have thought about it previously to Piers Morgan asking him about it, leaving him to babble about using the force of criminal law to outlaw abortion, but then claiming some kind of weird "libertarian" position that while he'll criminalize the procedure, he won't "tell" the woman in question whether or not she should seek that criminal procedure.

That part he'll leave up to her personal "choice" on that matter.

What a weird and clunky way to try to have it both ways on a very binary position.

I have to ask DrewM.'s question again (which I also began to wonder about) -- what was he discussing as a talk radio host?

I mentioned in a comment that initially I was open to Herman Cain. While I didn't like the "complete neophyte in campaigning" aspect of him, I thought that, having been a political talk radio host, he'd actually not turn out to be a complete neophyte.

After all, isn't a political talk show host offering up opinions and discussing the news and being challenged by callers and learning from guests every week?

So I figured that his training as political talk-show host would end up counting as related experience for politics.

But again and again he seems to be incoherent on very basic things.

So what the hell was he talking about every day?

How did he never stumble over this tough question, and then, after consideration, come to some kind of answer in his own mind?

How did Israel, the Right of Return, Afghanistan, etc., never come up on this talk show?

For The Poor, It's Not 9-9-9, It's 9-0-9: Cain begins talking up a wrinkle to his plan -- whether it's new, or only newly publicized, I don't know. But he says the poor would not pay the income tax portion of the plan. So for them, it would be nine zero nine.

That doesn't seem ludicrous. The idea that we'd just jack up income taxes on those accustomed to paying none was always kind of a stretch (and massively unpopular -- wait 'til you tell a full half of the population you're raising their taxes).

But this sure seems to be the sort of thing that could have been mentioned earlier.

In Fairness... I'm a Perry booster. But what really bothered me about Perry wasn't just his "heartless" comment itself, but the implication that he really had not expected this to be an issue, and really had not bothered thinking about it too much. Leaving him to grope on stage for explanations and defenses, and coming up with the worst one possible.

So Perry does this too.

I don't get this. I don't get it all.

I can see not knowing this or that wonkish detail, or having given thought to some minor issue.

But on big things like war, abortion, and immigration -- were these guys really not expecting the issues to come up?

I just don't understand how you get on to a debate stage or do nationally televised interviews thinking "Oh, if those issues come up, I'm sure I'll come up with something on the spur of the moment."

If they come up? You're thinking maybe they won't?

What's with winging it?

Posted by: Ace at 11:08 AM | Comments (383)
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