I Don’t Get It

We’re constantly told by the government–and this isn’t just Dear Leader’s administration; it goes back to September 12, 2001–that we are not fighting Islam, Islam is a religion of peace (as opposed to the culture of hatred, oppression and death that it appears to be) and that terrorists who are self-described adherents to Islam aren’t really, and they in fact pervert the teachings of the religion.

So explain to me why it is we would take pains to treat Osama bin Dead’s flailing corpse in accordance with traditional Muslim practices? Why do we want to be certain he’s buried within 24 hours in accordance with the Koran or hadiths or whatever, if he isn’t really a Muslim? Do his actions and beliefs pervert Islam, or adhere to it? Because, if he’s been perverting his supposed religion, it seems to me we’re under no obligation to respect any damn thing he might have wanted or expected.

Someone help me out with that one, will ya?

Weird

So Rashard Mendenhall is apparently a truther. To whit: “I just have a hard time believing a plane could take a skyscraper down demolition style.”

Tell ya what, jock-you stick to running around on Sundays trying not to get hit, and don’t worry your pretty little head about things like physics and math and chemistry. Let the grown-ups deal with all that, m’kay? All you need to know about 9-11 is “can” and “did”.

One Down…

Osama bin Laden is dead, and good riddance. The world will no longer waste oxygen on his existence. He deserves nothing more or less than to be mounted on a pike, a piece of bacon shoved down his throat and a pig’s head stuck atop his skull, in a field populated by a pack of hungry dogs.

I understand he took a headshot right through the forehead, so he saw what was coming–the best troops in the world gunning for his sorry, cowardly ass.

It Really Irritates Me…

I come up with these great ideas for posts, but I’m not at a place where I can do anything about it. Then when I get to a place where I can do something about this post idea, I completely forget what it was.

Irritating.

Public Unions Must Go

First, let me say that I despise unions. They distort the labor market, drive up costs for companies, and thus the customers of those companies, and have grown increasingly corrupt. At this point in time, they exist for little more than preserving the power of their leadership.

That being said, though, I don’t have (much of) a problem with unions in private industry. There have certainly been abuses by business owners in the past, and unions of the late 19th and early 20th century played a significant role in correcting those abuses. Every worker today, union or not, owes those early unions for the various work rules we largely take for granted now.

Beyond that, when a company and it’s workers have a dispute, I have alternatives. If Safeway’s cashiers go on strike, I can get food at Target or Walmart or Albertson’s. If United has a pilot walkout, I can be rebooked on Delta or American or (shudder) Southwest. I always have another source for whatever a given company provides, so I can work around a strike (or lockout) if I have to. Granted, it might cost me a little more, or come without all of the particular services I like-there’s a reason I choose a particular grocery store, airline or whatever over it’s competitors-but I still have options.

With a public union, this is not so. If government employees go on strike, that means the potholes don’t get filled, or the kids don’t get taught, or the driver’s licenses aren’t issued, marriages go unrecorded, fires aren’t put out, criminals don’t get caught. Government services are monopolies-you can’t just godown the block to Ed’s Discount Fire Protection; you get the service from your local employees, or you don’t get it at all.

Beyond that, the fiscal incentives are different for governments and their employees than those faced in industry. A CEO has an incentive to resolve a strike as quickly as possible for the same reason I don’t mind private unions quite as much-customer choice. If we can’t go to our regular provider of some product or service, we can get something similar somewhere else. Companies run a risk that an extended strike leads customers to decide they like the competition better, and may just decide to stay with the competition even after the contract is resolved.

Of course, the unions know this, too, which is why they go on strike in the first place. It’s also true, though, that the unions know there are limits to what a company can do in terms of increasing their own costs via massive giveaways in their contracts. This acts as a brake (however weak) on unions asking for the moon in negotiations. If this company runs up wages so high that they can’t compete on price with that company over there, it will go out of business, and then the employees are all making nothing at all.

With a public union, this isn’t true. The executives-especially Democrats, though historically Republicans much of the time, too-figure, “Well, we have to get them back to work, so let’s give the union what it wants, and we can just raise taxes to cover the costs.” Governments can decree how much you will pay them, whether you like it or not, and you have limited options for applying market pressure to them to hold costs down. There are many states these days which require a vote to approve new taxes, so that’s something, but you’re never told it’s because of union wages exerting an upward pressure on government costs.

The union model for public sector employees is simply unsustainable. Thee is no more economy to tax. Government budgets must shrink, or this nation will go bankrupt. The Tea Parties have put some spine into some Republicans, finally, and we might just have a shot at actually containing costs and-dare I dream-reducing the size of governments at all levels.

Is There Such a Thing as Universal Truth?

Note – I am not asking, “What is universally true?” This post is not about the nature of some universal truth, but rather whether there is a universal truth, whatever it might be.

The answer? Yes, there is universal truth. There must be. I know relativists claim otherwise, but their claims are self defeating. For the relativists to be right, it must always be true that nothing is always true. Thus, there is universal truth. Any two people may not agree on what things are universally true, but there is something.

The Mythical “Backlash”

“… the world will never respect Islam until Islam shows that it is worthy of respect.”

Islamophobia is a Myth

That’s right, there’s no such thing as Islamophobia. Why do I say this? Because ‘phobia’ is defined as an irrational fear; fear of Islam and it’s most ardent adherents is not irrational. Rather, it is the quite reasonable response to the persistent, repeated actions of individuals around the world who claim to be practitioners of that religion.

And not just those who actually carry out bombings and other attacks on frequently innocent victims (what’s more, ironically enough, the victims – whether innocent or not – are frequently other Muslims). No, the perfectly rational fear derives also from the Palestinians celebrating when they heard about 9-11, and from the idiot in New York – one of the supposed ‘moderate’ Muslims – who says those attacks were our own fault. It’s because of the many Muslims who take to the streets with posters saying “death to those who insult Islam” because of a couple of freaking cartoons. It’s about asshole cab drivers who won’t accept a fare because the blind passenger has a seeing eye dog.

It’s right, rational, reasonable and appropriate to have a fear of Islam, because only if we are afraid will we be motivated to stand against the creep of sharia, the hijab, stoning a woman because she was raped.

I fear what islam is doing to this country and the world, but I am not irrational.

Teachers & Pay Scales

You always hear about how teachers are underpaid – that they deserve more money because the job they do is so important, they have so much education they have to maintain, and whatever else. And those who say all that may well be right.

But you know what? I kinda think that, overall, we’re better off keeping teachers a little underpaid. You always here about teachers who teach “because [they] love it.” Frankly, those are the people I want teaching my kids (assuming I had any), and as long as we underpay teachers, that’s pretty much the only people we’re going to have teaching. If you make this career field pay the way some people believe it ought to, you start getting people doing the job just for the check, and who really thinks that’s the kind of folks we want trying to educate our kids?

Remember, your pension/Social(ist) Security benefits are fully dependent on ensuing generations keeping the economy running at a fairly high pace over the long term. There will always be the occasional recession, but there’s no reason they need to be all that deep or all that prolonged, but we need to have reasonably well-informed people filling the various jobs in the economy and, perhaps more importantly, pulling the levers in the voting booth. Kids whose teacher was just working for the weekend won’t be the sort of folks we want running things.

Felipe Calderon Can Suck It

Hypocritical little bitch needs to figure out why thousands of people are willing to risk jail or death to get away from his crappy little country before he worries about us trying to make sure we know who’s coming into our home.