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Daily Archives: March 23, 2017
Rivers Casino hit with underage gambling fine – NEWS10 ABC
Posted: March 23, 2017 at 2:33 pm
SCHENECTADY, N.Y. (NEWS10) Rivers Casino has been hit with a fine for underage gambling.
The State Gaming Commission says a minor went onto the gaming floor just after 10:30 p.m. on February 14 and won a $1,300 jackpot playing the slot machines.
When asked to show his ID to collect his winnings, casino staff then discovered that he was under the age of 18.
The Commission says its investigation revealed the following:
Rivers Casino released this statement regarding the fine:
Rivers Casino & Resort acted swiftly and appropriately once the underage customer was identified, and also self-reported this incident to the New York State Gaming Commission. Responsible gaming, including preventing underage gaming, is a top priority at our property, and we are continually making improvements to our operations to maintain our commitment to that mission. That is why we are glad to be partnering with the New York Responsible Play Partnership to present todays public meeting on Responsible Gaming.
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Canada Conjoins Euthanasia and Organ Harvesting – Discovery Institute
Posted: at 2:33 pm
It was so predictable, andI predicted it.Following Belgium and the Netherlands, Canadian MDs have conjoined euthanasia and organ harvesting before it was specifically allowed in Canadian law.From theNational Poststory:
Doctors have already harvested organs from dozens of Canadians who underwent medically assisted death, a practice supporters say expands the pool of desperately needed organs, but ethicists worry could make it harder for euthanasia patients to voice a last-minute change of heart.
In Ontario, 26 people who died by lethal injection have donated tissue or organs since the federal law decriminalizing medical assistance in dying, or MAID, came into effect last June, according to information obtained by the Post. A total of 338 have died by medical assistance in the province.
Most of the 26 were tissue donors, which usually involves eyes, skin, heart valves, bones and tendons.
Allowing a person to consent to homicide which is what we are talking about here with the intention of organ donation, puts great pressure on despairing people who can come to think that their deaths are more valuable than their lives.
Even worse, society can come to see such people as so many organ farms too.
We are watching the most brutal and awful things transpire with barely a peep of protest.
Well, I will:Suicidal people need suicide prevention, not the implied encouragement of allowing their killing to be conjoined with organ procurement.
Photo credit: Tomasz Zajda stock.adobe.com.
Cross-posted at The Corner.
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Canada Conjoins Euthanasia and Organ Harvesting - Discovery Institute
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Cancer pioneer Clive Deverall’s death puts spotlight on voluntary euthanasia laws – ABC Online
Posted: at 2:33 pm
Updated March 22, 2017 20:08:10
The debate over voluntary euthanasia has been brought into sharp focus following the death of a highly respected veteran of Western Australia's healthcare sector.
The former executive director of the WA Cancer Council, 75-year-old Clive Deverall, took his life on March 11 after suffering for two decades from a rare form of non-Hodgkin's lymphoma.
At his funeral on Monday, his widow Noreen Fynn told family and friends he had left a note that said "suicide is legal, euthanasia is not".
Ms Fynn told the ABC it was "no accident" Mr Deverall took his life on the day of the WA election.
"It was a message. If the legislation [to allow voluntary euthanasia] had been place, I don't think he would have taken his life," she said.
"I truly think that if he had had options, he would not have gone on Saturday."
Mr Deverall served as head of the Cancer Council WA for more than 20 years and worked tirelessly to set up palliative care services, as president of Palliative Care WA.
Described as "fearless and irrepressible", he lobbied governments and fought the tobacco and asbestos industries.
"Clive Deverall was a colossus," friend and former colleague Terry Slevin told the ABC.
"He was a pioneer of cancer action from public health and prevention, support for patients and moving into palliative care. His compassion for the people around him was legendary."
But over recent years, Mr Deverall's attention turned to assisted dying laws and he joined Go Gentle, a lobby group set up by broadcaster Andrew Denton.
"When the former president of Palliative Care WA takes his life in a public place in order to end his irreversible suffering and to protect his family from the same, it could hardly be more significant," Mr Denton told the ABC.
"It gives the lie to the line trotted out by politicians who oppose assisted dying laws, and their fellow-travellers in the medical profession, that 'palliative care can take care of everything'. It's not true.
"Clive, who knew the realities better than anyone, because he was living and dying them, knew it was not true too."
Mr Deverall told the ABC in an interview last October that palliative care was not the answer for between 4 and 8 per cent of patients.
"Certainly I still embrace what palliative care stands for, but even with their clinical guidelines, they avoid the elephant in the room which is the very end stage patients where symptoms cannot be controlled," Mr Deverall said.
"Patients in that distressed state, those patients should be offered voluntary euthanasia.
"The take home message is that we have a cruel law at the moment that is prejudicial to the interests and wishes of patients, that needs to be changed.
"The lack of compassionate law in this state will force some people into taking their own lives in a fairly brutal way."
Mr Deverall supported the campaign for assisted dying laws by Perth GP Alida Lancee.
Dr Lancee has been the subject of a police murder investigation since she admitted providing an injection to an 80-year-old patient with end-stage emphysema.
At the state election, Dr Lancee ran against former WA premier Colin Barnett in his seat of Cottesloe, advocating a freedom of choice end of life bill which she expects will be tabled either later this year or early next year.
She said Mr Deverall's support had been immeasurable.
"He has given a voice to all those people he has witnessed who have suffered unnecessarily and have not been given the option that, unfortunately, he was denied also," she said.
"But we will fight to the end until sense prevails."
Mr Slevin said his friend had struggled with his disease and the side-effects of his treatment for 20 years.
He described Mr Deverall as "an extraordinarily energetic, fun but dedicated soul" and "an extraordinary rogue and a scoundrel".
"You knew when you were around Clive that you were living life to the full," he said.
"Clive had passions, Clive had beliefs and he never stepped back from those.
"But I think it's really important for people to understand the extraordinary achievements that he made across the board.
"I would be sad to see it focus just on one specific issue and particularly the last few days of his life."
Topics: euthanasia, death, cancer, wa
First posted March 22, 2017 15:28:43
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Cancer pioneer Clive Deverall's death puts spotlight on voluntary euthanasia laws - ABC Online
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California (and America)–Wake Up: No Sanctuary States! – Townhall
Posted: at 2:32 pm
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Posted: Mar 23, 2017 12:01 AM
The rule of law should be a no-brainer: cities are for citizens. The very concept of politics is based on the word polis, and that means citizen. We the People in the U.S. Constitution refers to citizens, men and women who recognize their rights, which come from God.
Whats one way to take power away from We the People? Erode the meaning and privilege of citizenship. And thats what Californias Democratic Party is doing. Just when I thought that the Democrats in California (and apparently Colorado, too) had already gone too far, now they add another layer to the rampant perversity.
Kevin De Leon, anchor baby turned State Senate President (whose family members are illegals, relying on fraudulent documents to survive) is going to steal every resource from California taxpayers to fund his illegal alien paradise. Who says illegals are discriminated against? They are running the government of California into the ground! Two pieces of legislation are on the horizon. If youre not careful, they could be coming to a state near you.
Senate Bill 6 will transfer tax dollars to provide legal counsel to illegal aliens facing contentious court hearings as they await deportation. Check this out: we have spiking crime rates throughout the state of California. Even in my nice and calm South Bay home, property crimes are rising, especially property crime. Sandra Duran was just killed in a hit and run in the North Hills section of Los Angeles by an illegal alien.
Illegal immigration is not a victimless crime, and a sanctuary state will not guarantee safety for anyone. Except, of course, the politicians who want to score points with La Raza, LULAC, and other Hispandering special interest groups who will keep their Brown Power puppets in power for as long as possible. This is the essence of corruption: a set of laws for one group of people, and a set of laws for everyone else. This is beyond shameful. This is beyond intolerable.
And once again, immigration remains an untouchable third rail in California. Deal with it, Republicans and Democrats alike. Stand up for the rule of law, dammit! Governor Pete Wilson was right to champion Prop 187 in 1994. I wish he had continued to champion that initiative. Even then, California was not a Lily Wasp-like state. That means men and women of every color are all Americans and they just want whats best for their kids and their future.
Guess what? 70% of Californians oppose sanctuary cities, and that includes 60% of Democrats! Even the registered Democratic votersin California, mind youare waking up to how their own party is leaving them behind.
One would think that the growing list of dead Californians would finally wake up the voters to the dangers implicit in sanctuary cities. One life killed by an illegal alien is one too many, but here are 8 lives lost forever:
California was a not a sanctuary for these individuals.
Statistics have outlined that at least 25 people a DAY are killed by illegal aliens in this country.
California Democrats want to turn the Golden State into a Sanctuary state? How about deporting illegal aliens and putting Americans first? Heres another great idea: let law enforcement enforce our laws.
Yes, I know this bid for sanity is a bit complicated for liberals, but the basic tenet of any government is this: protect our rights. And the California Democratic supermajority is not on board with even this, but rather protecting the privileges of a well-connected minority of elitists and La Raza activists.
There is hope, however. The Democrats cannot lose one vote in the state senate to maintain their very slim supermajority. Three years ago, four state senators were arrested, convicted, and/or sentenced for various felonies (voter fraud, gun-running, whatever). Some current Democrat members are feeling the heat like they never have before. I already visited my state assemblyman (a Democrat who had voted against the misguided California (Mis)Trust Act of 2013).
But bigger guns, literally and figuratively, have raised their voices against SB 54s collective immorality. In spite of a long list of proponents for this awful bill, two key organizations have not compromised, but are fully opposed:
The opposition from these two groups was enough to stave off emergency passage.
Four Southern California county sheriffs oppose SB 54, including the somewhat squishy Jim McDonnell of Los Angeles. Why do I target the former police chief of Long Beach? Yes, hes my sheriff. More importantly, though, not even two months ago, he was on record supporting the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors decision to provide legal aid to the countys illegal alien population, and McDonnell affirmed he had no intention in going after illegals living in LA solely because of their immigration status.
But now he opposes the entire state taking on LA Countys proposals. What gives? In his view, preventing communication of any kind between ICE officials and state law enforcement would lead to ICE officials sweeping through neighborhoods and arrest more illegals, not just the violent ones in LA County jails.
Unbelievable! I would like to believe that McDonnell really does care about enforcing our immigration laws, and simply does not want the rising spike of various crimes against Angelenos. Unlike LAPD Chief of Police Charlie Beck (who stands with the illegals, rather than the legal residents) McDonnell is elected by the people in the county. More deaths like Sandra Durans might have cut his re-election chances in half.
No American should allow this. Sanctuary cities are dangerous, racist, and outright wrong. I have written before that California was already a sanctuary state. SB 54 will make that designation seriously official, cutting off all communication between state and federal law enforcement regarding illegal aliens in California.
Originally posted here:
California (and America)--Wake Up: No Sanctuary States! - Townhall
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Has the Trump Budget Blown Republicans’ Cover? – BillMoyers.com
Posted: at 2:29 pm
Atlas holding the world at Rockefeller Center. Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand is an honored favorite for many in the GOP. (Flickr CC 20.0 /GmanViz)
The one question you never hear journalists ask Republicans is why?
Why do so many Republicans want to throw 24 million struggling Americans off the health insurance rolls? Why does the allegedly populist Trump administration submit a budget that slashes job training programs for the very same jobless white folks he claimed to represent?
Why cut Meals on Wheels, child care, after-school programs and learning centers for the poor, affordable housing and aid to the homeless? Why zero out occupational safety training and economic growth assistance in distressed communities in Appalachia and the Mississippi Delta (more Trump constituents)? Why slash legal aid and medicine and food for the sick and hungry in the developing world, among many others?
the real and simple question they should be asking is a moral one: Why do Republicans seem intent on hurting the most vulnerable among us?
Journalists ask Republicans about policies, mechanisms and money, but those are technical questions when the real and simple question they should be asking is a moral one: Why do Republicans seem intent on hurting the most vulnerable among us?
Unfortunately, the answer may just be, to paraphrase Clint Eastwoods Dirty Harry on why serial killers murder: because they like it.
Sure, we know the rote answers. Republicans love to talk about choice and freedom and markets and deficit reduction and personal responsibility and all sorts of ideological claptrap that seems to slap principle on what really is punishment. At best these are smokescreens, at worst traps that have succeeded in entangling the media, Democrats and Americans generally in arguments about tactics or priorities rather than arguments about motives and their real-life consequences.
There was a time when Republicans worried they might be perceived as being on the wrong side of morality, even if that worry didnt move them to get on the right side. They used to dress up their cruelty not only in those old Milton Friedman free market clichs but in new ones like compassionate conservatism, because even as they knew there was nothing compassionate about it, they also knew that most Americans werent buying into letting the poor fend for themselves. That wasnt American. That wasnt human.
Some of that window dressing remains in the Trump era, but not much. Republicans still feel obliged to declare that their health care plan will cover more Americans at a lower cost, but everyone knows they are lying. By one report, when the White House ran the numbers, it predicted 26 million would lose health coverage 2 million more than the Congressional Budget Office figure.
BY Neal Gabler | March 13, 2017
Speaker Paul Ryan was more than sanguine about those sufferers. He flashed a vulpine smile in recounting the CBO numbers, actually saying they were better than he had thought, which is to say that the American Health Care Act, as they call it, may have been intended to deny coverage, just as Trumps budget clearly was intended to hurt the most vulnerable, including those vulnerable supporters of his. To my mind, these werent collateral effects. They were the very reasons for the AHCA and the budget.
So, again, why? What kind of people seem dedicated to inflicting pain on others?
It is not an easy question to answer, since it violates all precepts of basic decency. I suspect it comes from a meld of Calvinism with social Darwinism. From Calvinism, conservatives borrowed both a pinched and unsparing view of humanity as well as the idea of election namely, that God elects some folks for redemption, which, when rebooted for modern conservatism, has an economic component. Plain and simple, rich people are rich because they are better than poor people.
By the same token, poor people are poor because they are worse. This is Gods edict, so to speak. (The so-called Calvinist revival has an awful lot in common with Trumpism.) From social Darwinism, they borrowed the idea that this is the way the world should be: winners and losers, those who can succeed and those who cant. It is a world without luck, except for tough luck.
Plain and simple, rich people are rich because they are better than poor people.
From this perspective, conservatives may not really think they are harming the vulnerable but instead harming the undeserving, which is very different. In effect, conservatives believe they are only meting out divine and natural justice. Its convenient, of course, that this justice turns out to be redistributive, taking resources from the poor and middle class and funneling them to the wealthy, who happen to be the benefactors of conservatism as well as its beneficiaries. (Just note how Republicans howl about redistribution when it is the other way around.) Where many of us see need, they only see indolence and impotence. It is, by almost any gauge, not only self-serving but also plainly wrong moralistic rather than moral.
But if Republicans see their moral duty as denying help to the weak, that denial is part of a larger and even uglier social equation. In a recent New York Times column, Linda Greenhouse recalled an exchange 30 years ago between Robert Bork and Illinois Sen. Paul Simon during Borks confirmation hearings for the Supreme Court. Simon asked Bork about a speech he had given two years earlier, in which the judge said:
when a court adds to one persons constitutional rights, it subtracts from the rights of others.
The senator asked, Do you believe that is always true?
Yes, Senator, Judge Bork replied. I think its a matter of plain arithmetic.
Sen. Simon: I have long thought it is kind of fundamental in our society that when you expand the liberty of any of us, you expand the liberty of all of us.
Judge Bork: I think, Senator, that is not correct.
Remember that although (or perhaps because!) his Supreme Court nomination failed, Bork is a conservative deity. As far as conservatives and Republicans are concerned, to give anything to the less fortunate is to subtract it from everyone else a zero-sum game between the rich and the rest of America.
This isnt politics. This is bedrock conservative philosophy. And it may have no more eager avatar than Donald Trump, who is all about winning and losing. Trump has always professed to want to blow up the system. He is like a child knocking down a tower of blocks, only in his case the blocks are American democracy and decency.
But with the AHCA and his Draconian budget, one that even a few Republicans no doubt fearing voter retribution blanched at, Trump may not have blown up the system so much as he has blown the Republicans cover. He even seems to have emboldened some of them to come out of hiding and admit that any assistance for the poor is too much.
This we always suspected. What is harder to parse is the joy conservative Republicans seem to get in hurting the weak, making the GOP not just the punishment party, but also the schadenfreude party. Or put in different terms: Conservatism didnt create meanness, but meanness sure created conservatism.
We might be able to understand that sense of smug moral and social superiority from doctrinaire Republicans who spout Ayn Rand and detest those whose hurdles are the highest. We all know hate can be intoxicating. But these past two weeks Ryan and Trump have been gambling on something else that many of their fellow Americans agree with them, that these Americans share a deep and abiding hostility to those who need government assistance. Whether Ryan and Trump are right may very well determine the fate of this administration and the country.
So the second big question, alongside why Republicans and conservatives seem to luxuriate in cruelty, is why any other ordinary American would. There have been predictions on the left that once those ordinary Americans feel the sting of losing health care or job training or work safety regulations or clean water and air, they will revolt, and Trump will be dust. But there is no certainty to this. A recent New York Times piece on this very issue indicated that at least some Trump supporters know they will suffer from his budget and still support him.
Another Times article, by Eduardo Porter, quoted a Harvard economist suggesting that the white working class feel they get so little benefit from the so-called welfare state that they see things through the same zero-sum prism as Bork, Ryan and Trump. Whatever the poor gain, the white working class loses.
When you think how much the government does for so many across such a wide spectrum, you wonder what world these people are living in. Indeed, a signal achievement of conservatism, decades in the making, has been pitting the have littles against the have nots while the have lots stayed above the fray. Of course, by that calculation, you might think the struggling white working class would be on the loser side of the ledger, sentenced to defeat by their own deficiencies in our Darwinist world. But in another neat trick, Republicans have managed to convince them they are victims of twin demonic forces, government and liberal elites, that disrupt the natural order of things. In this way, many Republicans helped turn many Americans into brutes and our American community into a state of nature. There couldnt have been a President Trump without it. There couldnt have been an ACHA or a Trump budget either.
This, then, is a vital moment for American morality and, to the extent the two are intertwined, American democracy. You cant pretend Trump and his Republican pals are trying to achieve good ends by different means. They arent. You cant act as if they give a damn about the millions of poor and working-class Americans. They dont.
But even as their cover is blown, someone needs to keep asking them the fundamental question again and again and again: Why?
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Has the Trump Budget Blown Republicans' Cover? - BillMoyers.com
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Letter: Ayn Rand’s influence in the rush to repeal Obamacare – NorthJersey.com
Posted: at 2:29 pm
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NorthJersey 1:17 p.m. ET March 21, 2017
House Speaker Paul Ryan was inspired to become a politician when he read Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand.The premise is simple: There are makers and there are takers.The makers create wealth and provide jobs. The government taxes the makers and gives the money to the undeserving takers. Whenever government does this, the takers call it entitlements.The Republicans call it welfare, class warfareand a redistribution of wealth.
The rush to repeal and replace Obamacare is a masquerade. It is a huge tax cut for the wealthy, disguised as health reform. Republicans cannot pass more tax cuts for the rich by a simple majority in the Senate unless they do so in a way that doesnt add to the deficit.By cutting money for Medicaid and Obamacare, they will able to reduce the federal deficit and thus can move to tax reform where the lions share of tax cuts will again go to the wealthy.
Die-hard conservatives Ryan, Clarence Thomasand Ben Carson are all Ayn Rand devotees.All have benefited from government largess. Ayn Rand, herself, was recipient of both Social Security and Medicare near the end of her life.
JohnnieNajarian
River Edge, March 20
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Letter: Ayn Rand's influence in the rush to repeal Obamacare - NorthJersey.com
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Arguable: Welcome, vernal equinox – The Boston Globe
Posted: at 2:29 pm
A sea of daffodils blooming in Hyde Park in London on March 1, 2017.
In the Arguable e-mail newsletter, columnist Jeff Jacoby offers his take on everything from politics to pet peeves to the passions of the day. Sign up here.
Spring has sprung
Happy vernal equinox! Today is the official start of spring, the date when night and day are each 12 hours long, right? Actually . . . wrong.
Two parents are better than one
Last year, 140 million babies were born around the world. About 15% of them were born out of wedlock. While it is still almost unheard-of in many Asian and African countries for unmarried mothers to have a baby, in much of Europe and the Americas it has become only too common.
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In a new study published by YaleGlobal, demographer Joseph Chamie notes that of the 35 leading industrialized nations, only five Greece, Israel, Japan, South Korea, and Turkey still have out-of-wedlock birth rates below 10%.
By contrast, writes Chamie, who was formerly the head of the UN Population Division, In the large majority of more developed countries, including Germany, the United Kingdom, and the United States, more than one-third of all births take place out of wedlock. And within individual countries, there are often wide differences between population subgroups.
In the United States, for example, significant differences in out-of-wedlock births exist among major social groups. While the national average for the United States in 2014 is 40 percent, the proportions of births out of wedlock for whites are 29 percent; Hispanics, 53 percent; and blacks, 71 percent.
This weeks newsletter from columnist Jeff Jacoby.
Chamie doesnt expressly judge the desirability of children being raised by only one parent Im sure he was conditioned long ago to stay away from that highly-charged debate. In many circles, political correctness and moral nonjudgmentalism make it virtually impossible to discuss the explosion in out-of-wedlock births what used to be called illegitimacy with candor.
The closest Chamie comes to acknowledging the risks parents take when they choose to bear children without providing an intact family setting is in his final paragraph:
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In too many instances the children born out of wedlock are disadvantaged and fail to receive the necessary protections, support and assistance to ensure their health, development, and well-being. Unfortunately, this challenge, too often ignored to the detriment of the children, communities, and countries, must be addressed.
Few topics in modern discourse are as emotionally, politically, and ideologically fraught as the choices people make in forming families. When the subject turns to raising children without two parents, civility often boils away in heated self-righteousness. This isnt new: Think of the outraged reaction to Daniel Patrick Moynihans 1965 report on the breakdown of the Negro family, or the uproar over the Murphy Brown sitcom during the 1992 presidential race.
Of course not all children raised by single parents struggle economically or professionally. Barack Obama is a perfect example. He was two years old when he was abandoned by his father, yet rose to remarkable heights of power and influence. But as Obama himself stressed more than once, exceptions like him dont disprove the rule. The data arent in question.
Children who grow up without a father are more likely to live in poverty, Obama said at a Fathers Day event in 2010.
Theyre more likely to drop out of school. Theyre more likely to wind up in prison. Theyre more likely to abuse drugs and alcohol. Theyre more likely to run away from home. Theyre more likely to become teenage parents themselves. And I say all this as someone who grew up without a father in my own life.
As a rule it takes two parents to raise a child, however un-PC it has become to say so. The old stigma against unwed motherhood wasnt always fair or kind. But it was realistic. And it was certainly better than blithely accepting a society in which 40% of American children are raised without knowing the love of two parents, or being sheltered in the home they make together.
Got Grammar?
Probably it was never literally true that for want of a nail, the kingdom was lost. But it is indisputably true that for want of a comma, a $10 million class-action lawsuit against the Oakhurst Dairy Company of Portland, Maine, was lost.
For Oxford comma sticklers like me, last weeks ruling by the 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals was a thing of grammatical joy. The dispute involved Maines overtime statute, which exempts specified tasks from overtime pay. Among those exempted functions were these:
Oakhurst Dairys drivers claimed they were owed overtime pay for distribution of the companys products. The company argued that the statute only exempted those involved in packing for shipment or distribution not the drivers doing the actual distributing. If lawmakers had included a comma before the or, all would have been clear: Drivers employed in distribution would not be entitled to overtime pay. But without that final comma known as a serial or Oxford comma ambiguity was unavoidable. In resolving it, the appeals court ruled that the drivers had the better case, and so Oakhurst Dairy is out $10 million.
As far as Im concerned, the case for the serial comma has always seemed obvious. I cant understood why anyone would advise leaving it out as a matter of routine. A classic demonstration of the need for the serial comma is this (doubtless apocryphal) book dedication: To my parents, Ayn Rand and God. Without a comma before the conjunction, the author seems to be crazy or blasphemous enough to imagine that the author of Atlas Shrugged and the Almighty were his mother and father. But add a single comma To my parents, Ayn Rand, and God and clarity reigns.
The story reminded me of one of those great exchanges that for years made William F. Buckleys Notes & Asides the column in which he regularly reproduced his exchanges with colleagues, readers, and other correspondents the best part of National Review. From December 1972:
A ukase. Un- negotiable. The only one I have issued in seventeen years. It goes: John went to the store and bought some apples, oranges, and bananas. NOT: John went to the store and bought some apples, oranges and bananas. I am told National Reviews style book stipulates the omission of the second comma. My comment: National Reviews style book used to stipulate the omission of the second comma. National Reviews style book, effective immediately, makes the omission of the second comma a capital offense!
Among the responses was this lament from D. Keith Mano, a National Review columnist, to the magazines managing editor, Buckleys sister Priscilla:
I have read with dismay WFBs ukase on the serial comma. I cant do it. No way. Its just plain ugly. WFB says this is un-negotiable. . . . How serious is he? Can I arrange a dispensation?
Look: Ill compromise. There should be peace in the family. Instead of John went to the store and bought some apples, oranges, and bananas how about if he just buys oranges and bananas? Or a head of non-union lettuce. You see what this sort of restriction leads to. And they ask me why fiction is dying. Erich Segal, I bet, uses the serial comma.
You may tell WFB that, from now on and as ordered, I salute the red and white.
OK, OK, maybe you have to be a grammar nerd to bliss out to this kind of thing. Back in the day, I confess, I was the sentence-diagramming champion of Mrs. OBriens 7th-grade boys English class at the Hebrew Academy of Cleveland. But even you dont know a gerund from a present participle, you ought to be careful about commas. Leave one out, and it could cost someone $10 million.
Or, perish the thought, even worse.
The cost of feminism
What would you pay for a plain white cotton T-shirt, printed with the words We Should All Be Feminists? $7? $17?
In fact, at Saks Fifth Avenue, that Dior T-shirt will set you back $710. Or would, if it werent already sold out. A sucker really is born every minute, and some of them are women. Dior is happy to take their money and let them think theyre making a social statement.
How to be a jerk with snow
Perhaps you saw the story over the weekend by the Boston Globes Steve Annear, who described how a snow plow driver in Brockton, Mass., went out of his way to be a schmuck and lost his job as a result.
Out of spite and rudeness, the driver deliberately plowed a heap of slushy snow into the end of a driveway that a 21-year-old resident had nearly finished clearing. Then the driver backed up, reloaded, and shoved even more snow on the pile. Then he did it again. The resident, it seems, had made the mistake of asking the snowplow operator to bypass the driveway because he was trying to clear the way so his father to leave. The driver decided to teach the young shoveler a lesson not to mess with the plow man.
Happily, the driver swiftly got his comeuppance. His abusive behavior was captured on a cellphone video, posted to Facebook, and shown to Brocktons mayor. Long story short, the snowplow driver was tracked down and fired. Good riddance.
But snowplow operators with an attitude arent the ones out there who are jerks about snow removal.
Almost as boorish and inconsiderate as the plow driver in the Globes story are property owners who cant be bothered to clear the snow from their sidewalks after a snowstorm. Shoveling isnt optional; its a legal requirement, like paying property taxes and fixing known hazards. Clearing the snow and salting against ice arent mere niceties, either. All it takes is one or two selfish non-shovelers to make an entire block impassable and to inflict misery on a parent pushing a stroller . . . or a handicapped senior struggling with a walker . . . or someone confined to a wheelchair.
Homeowners, landlords, and shopkeepers who ignore their obligation to make their sidewalks passable often leave pedestrians no option but to walk in the street, which can be unpleasant, dirty, and dangeorus. When sidewalks are blocked by snow or ice, people often are left with no choice but to take to a busy roadway made even more congested and perilous by the snow massed along the curbs, along with the blaring of drivers horns and the constant threat of being drenched by slush and icy water.
Non-shovelers are a menace to their neighborhoods, and city hall should throw the book at more of them. Start with stiff fines for the first couple of offenses. If that doesnt do the trick, perhaps some jail time will.
Only 364 days until the next wearin o the green
He was kidnapped at age 16 by pirates, he was forced into slavery as a shepherd, he is the patron saint of Nigeria . . . and other interesting things you never knew about St. Patrick.
Looking backward
My column yesterday argued that the only meaningful way to replace and repeal Obamacare is to pull the law up by the roots and then keep going. Two generations of health-care reform have wrecked what could be a robust free market in medical care and health insurance, with vendors and providers competing to offer better and better products at lower and lower prices.
In Wednesdays column I noted that climate-change models have been consistently wrong. If scientists cannot yet make accurate predictions about the degree to which climate will change, the logical conclusion is that their understanding of the science is still incomplete. I agreed with Scott Pruitt, the new EPA administrator, who told an interviewer that we need to continue the debate and . . . the review and the analysis before making irrevocable changes to the economy.
Wild Wild Web
Whats a scary sight? Dwight Eisenhower in a bathing suit is a scary sight.
Love padlocks on fences and bridges are lame. Umbrellas on trees are cool.
This video is not in reverse:
The last line
But they never learned what it was that Mrs. Whatsit, Mrs. Who, and Mrs. Which had to do, for there was a gust of wind, and they were gone. Madeleine LEngle, A Wrinkle in Time (1962)
Arguable will be back next Monday. Have a great week!
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I’m THAT Libertarian! Libertarians Honor Marc Feldman With New Convention Slogan – The Liberty Conservative
Posted: at 2:27 pm
The Libertarian Party has officially chosen Im THAT Libertarian as the next slogan for their biannual national convention in remembrance of 2016 Presidential hopeful Marc Feldman, who passed away last year. He gave an impassioned speech that was widely seen as one of the highlights of the conference.
At a tumultuous and divisive Libertarian National convention that caused bitter divisions within the party, Feldmans unifying, passionate message was an across-the-board hit. A relative unknown at the time going up against several noteworthy competitors with national profiles, Feldman stole the show with his closing remarks even his rivals were laughing and applauding. Tragically, he would pass away a month after the convention of natural causes at the age of 56.
Im that no pain, no gain, get those petitions signed in the rain Libertarian, Feldman said to raucous applause during a Presidential debate at the convention. That sorry, Im not sorry libertarian. That cant stand the infringements and abuses libertarian. That right here, right now, no excuses libertarian. Im that libertarian!
The entirety of Feldmans speech can be viewed here:
The results were announced after a fundraising drive in which a handful of slogans were presented and the winner was decided by the donations of interested members. Im THAT Libertarian beat out the other options of Building Bridges, Not Walls, Pro-Choice on Everything, Empowering the Individual, and The Power of Principle. In total, the party raised $15,395 in funds to help offset the cost of next years convention with $6,222 coming from donations in support of the winning slogan.
The 2018 Libertarian Party National Convention will be held in New Orleans, Louisiana from June 30 through July 3, 2018. They will select the body of the Libertarian National Committee (LNC), and attend to other party matters in preparation for the mid-term elections.
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Robesonian | Cooper hits libertarian chord – The Robesonian
Posted: at 2:27 pm
Gov. Roy Cooper was talking like a libertarian.
He probably didnt even realize it.
About a week ago, in his State of the State address, Cooper talked about many things. He discussed his budget plans and House Bill 2. He talked about education and the need to recruit the best teachers. To raise teacher pay. He addressed the need to help small business and about lowering the states unemployment rate.
He talked about Mackenzie Hinson, a 12-year old girl from Grantham who founded Make A Difference Food Pantry in her community.
Mackenzie stood in the Senate gallery, obviously a little nervous and probably embarrassed by the attention.
Lawmakers, led by the governor, stood to applaud.
Cooper spoke of the states resilient spirit and called Mackenzie remarkable.
An inspiration.
Hurricane Matthew struck coastal North Carolina in October and caused, according to some estimates, $2 billion in damage, as well as 28 deaths. This placed Matthew among the worst natural disasters in state history, surpassed perhaps only by 1999s Hurricane Floyd.
The state and federal governments have committed hundreds of millions toward recovery.
Mackenzie committed her valuable time and energy.
After the storm, Cooper said, Mackenzie and her band of volunteers got busy replenishing the pantry and offering whatever help they could provide.
Mackenzie and her team were not deterred, Cooper said in his speech. With the help of businesses and volunteers, they restocked and got to work. After Hurricane Matthew, Make A Difference Food Pantry was open for 42 straight days, serving 6,914 hot meals and distributing food boxes and toiletry items to over 8,000 people in Wayne, Johnston, and Sampson counties.
Mackenzie didnt wait for the government to arrive on its proverbial white horse. To tell residents everything would be OK. She and her friends took care of all that on their own.
Which is how its supposed to work.
John Locke argued, as the Cato Institutes David Boaz writes in Libertarianism: A Primer, that we establish government so that we may be secure in our lives, liberties, and properties as we go about the business of surviving and flourishing,
We cant do that alone, of course. We need a community, whether thats defined as a town, a family, a church, or common goals, and common beliefs.
Those associations, Boaz writes, form the basis for the idea of a civil society. The idea that neighbors and communities will step in to help in times of need. The government, or state, only impedes this process. In other words, government can interrupt and even eliminate charity.
When a real need exists people not necessarily government will step in for the benefit of friends and neighbors. People like Mackenzie.
Many news stories falsely reported President Trump wanted to drastically cut funding for Meals on Wheels programs. But, as Walter Olson wrote in National Review, the meals program gets much of its money from the Older Americans Act, and not from Community Development Block Grants, which, as Reason magazine writes, is ripe with cronyism and pork-barrel spending.
Yet news whether biased, misguided, or just wrong travels fast.
The Washington Post reported that, according to Meals on Wheels, the group has taken in more than $100,000 since the White House announced plans to eliminate the Community Development Block Grant program on Thursday compared with about $1,000 on a normal day.
Mackenzie should be proud.
By following your example, Cooper said, we will rebuild our communities and be a stronger state than ever. Good work, Mackenzie.
Its a great irony a progressive governor calling on a young resident who exemplifies the best aspects of the libertarian spirit.
Whether that was Coopers intent isnt clear.
http://robesonian.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/web1_john-trump-2106-1024683201732391134853.jpg
John Trump has worked as a reporter and editor for newspapers in North Carolina and throughout the country for more than 30 years.
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Demonetization: A Thinly-Veiled Attack on India’s Underground … – Being Libertarian
Posted: at 2:27 pm
The demonetization of high-denomination notes of Rs. 500 and Rs. 1000 by the BJP-led Government of India in November last year sent shock waves across the country. Prime Minister Narendra Modi, in his 2017 New Years speech, dubbed this move as a historic rite of purification, giving it a religious aspect. In the same speech, Modi struck a philosophical note by claiming that humans are inherently good, but over time, evil creeps into societies. He later clarifies that evil is synonymous with corruption, black money and counterfeit notes.
But, judging by the prominent place black money takes in his speech, one can safely assume that the government stripped two currency notes of their legal status principally to undermine Indias underground economy. Black money can be defined as income illegally obtained or not declared for tax purposes. The second part of the definition is often ignored by governments.
In his essay The Underground Economy Hans F. Sennholz accurately predicted this stance of governments when he wrote:
Government officials and agents are ever eager to lump both together, the criminals and their organization with the producers in the underground. Both groups are knowingly violating laws and regulations and defying political authority. But they differ radically in the role they play in society. The underworld comprises criminals who are committing acts of bribery, fraud, and racketeering, and willfully inflicting wrongs on society. The underground economy involves otherwise law-abiding citizens who are seeking refuge from the wrongs inflicted on them by government.
True to Sennholzs prediction, Modi, in his speech, said, It is accepted the world over, that terrorism, Naxalism, Maoism, counterfeit currency trade, drug trade, human trafficking all of these depend on black money. The underlying assumption in this argument that black money serves only criminals is incorrect. There are doctors, lawyers, accountants, and businessmen who seek refuge in the underground economy because of the enormous burden of taxation. Tax is a legalized form of theft and it reduces the marginal utility of productive efforts. In other words, the will to do productive work is lessened because the returns on productive work is reduced. Therefore, the only way such money can be brought into the formal economy is by reducing tax rates across all income groups.
Modi supports his flawed argument with several flawed premises. Economists agree that when cash is outside the formal economy, it is a cause of worry, he said. This is clearly an appeal-to-authority logical fallacy since he fails to mention which economists find it worrisome. There, certainly, will be economists who will be on board with governments agenda to capture money that escaped taxation.
Modis reason for why he wants to incorporate black money into the economy is, When it joins the mainstream, it is an opportunity for development. That is Orwellian double-speak for government spending and it ought to be seen for what it really is: an opportunity to provide even more subsidies to the partys voting blocs. Government spending distorts the economy, and contrary to popular belief, it does not lead to economic growth. True growth is fueled by growth in valuable goods and services in any economy.
Modi declared that inflation is the fallout from an increase in black money in the economy. The excess of cash was fueling inflation and black-marketing, he said. It was denying the poor their due. Granted, monetary inflation erodes the value of money and the poor are hurt most by it, but it is futile to blame black money for it. Monetary inflation is caused by an excess of money and credit circulating in the economy, and it is the Reserve Bank of India, with its market-distorting interest rate cuts, that ought to be blamed.
Another major activity of an underground economy is economic production that flouts minimum wage laws. Minimum wage laws are a form of price control. About minimum wage laws, Sennholz stated:
Minimum wage laws are nothing more than government orders to workers that they must not work for less than the stated minimum, and to employers that they must pay the minimum, or not employ at all. But such mandates may deny millions of workers the right to work, which is synonymous with the basic right to sustain their lives through their own efforts.
Indias Minimum Wages Act of 1948 specifies minimum wages on a per day basis. Last year, Rajasthans state government set Rs. 5,642 (approximately $84.6) per month as the minimum wage for housemaids. In a country where 828 million people (or 75.6% of the population) live below $2 a day, paying a housemaid $84.6 per month seems like a ludicrous proposition.
Underground economies have existed since the dawn of civilizations and they serve a useful purpose. The government would do well to realize that the road to prosperity does not begin with shredding currency notes, increasing taxes and attacking the underground economy.
Sriparna Neogi has a Masters degree in Business Administration. She works as an analyst in one of Indias largest e-commerce companies.
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