iPandora

In his Annual Message to Congress, delivered on January 11, 1944, FDR proposed a second bill of rights. He acknowledged the roll the first Bill of Rights played in the founding of the nation and bringing it successfully to that day:

“This Republic had its beginning, and grew to its present strength, under the protection of certain inalienable political rights—among them the right of free speech, free press, free worship, trial by jury, freedom from unreasonable searches and seizures. They were our rights to life and liberty.”

But he also believed “these political rights proved inadequate to assure us equality in the pursuit of happiness.” Therefore, in his mind, a second bill of rights was necessary.

Why did FDR believe the first Bill of Rights were inadequate? Simply because it permitted people to fail.

FDR, and the rest of the world witnessed how failure in Germany through the 20’s and 30’s, a byproduct of European leaders desire to make Germany pay for WWI (reparations), gave rise to Hitler and his fascism.

To FDR, “People who are hungry and out of a job are the stuff of which dictatorships are made.” Therefore, to avoid WWIII, he believed that the U.S. should fight against poverty, and nothing could fight it better than create a second Bill of Rights guaranteeing jobs, food, a home, medical care, education. In FDR’s words, “All of these rights spell security.”

But can a nation’s constitution guarantee a “right to success” in the same breath as it guarantees a “right to free speech”? Should a nation guarantee a “right to security” in the same line as it guarantees a “right to equal protection”?

No. To do so is impractical (there are as many definitions of “success” and “security” as there are people because we are all unique individuals) and strikes at the heart of the sovereignty of God and the inherent choice God has given man to determine his own destiny.

Israel is an amazing nation. To the list you’ll read at this website, you can add that the Intel-Israel R&D group developed the current generation Core2 microprocessor core, which currently heads all charts in desktop performance while using significantly less energy and producing significantly less heat.

I won’t give the any of the list here, but read the list and see that Gods touch on the land still has not worn off. And yet you see the hands of the enemy still trying desperately to destroy the land and its people:

All the above while engaged in regular wars with an implacable enemy that seeks its destruction, and an economy continuously under strain by having to spend more per capita on its own protection than any other county on earth.

AND THE FRENCH AMBASSADOR IN ENGLAND SAYS :

“ISRAEL IS NOTHING BUT A S****Y LITTLE COUNTRY”

Listening to Michael Medved on the radio on my way home from work recently, I heard him interviewing an author of a study regarding the disparity of pay between male and female workers. A major tenet of the feminist ideology is that men make more than women, universally. Apparently it is true that on average, women do make less than men. But sexist policies and male-run workplaces are the least of the causes, if at all. I do not recall the name of the author Michael was interviewing and not having a MedHead subscription I was unable to look through the archives. But…

In an article in Reason Magazine, Steven Chapman writes on the study:

On its face, the evidence in the AAUW (American Association of University Women) study looks damning. “One year out of college,” it says, “women working full-time earn only 80 percent as much as their male colleagues earn. Ten years after graduation, women fall farther behind, earning only 69 percent as much as men earn.”

But read more, and you learn things that don’t get much notice on Equal Pay Day. As the report acknowledges, women with college degrees tend to go into fields like education, psychology and the humanities, which typically pay less than the sectors preferred by men, such as engineering, math and business. They are also more likely than men to work for nonprofit groups and local governments, which do not offer salaries that Alex Rodriguez would envy.

As they get older, many women elect to work less so they can spend time with their children. A decade after graduation, 39 percent of women are out of the work force or working part time — compared with only 3 percent of men. When these mothers return to full-time jobs, they naturally earn less than they would have if they had never left.

Steve goes on with additional and interesting facts and findings by other researchers and concludes:

June O’Neill, an economist at Baruch College and former director of the Congressional Budget Office, has uncovered something that debunks the discrimination thesis. Take out the effects of marriage and child-rearing, and the difference between the genders suddenly vanishes. “For men and women who never marry and never have children, there is no earnings gap,” she said in an interview.

That’s a fact you won’t hear from AAUW or the Democratic presidential candidates. The prevailing impulse on Equal Pay Day was to lament how far we are from the goal. The true revelation, though, is how close.

Steve does include one paragraph in which he discusses the varying expectations and general responsibilities of men versus women in society. He ponders whether the men in families are compelling their wives to stay at home with the children while they go work. While I’m sure there are cases of this, as a general fact, the differences in nature between men and women are such that women do a better job, generally, at raising children as an at-home parent than men. Women are not necessarily compelled to stay home to raise children more than they desire to stay home.

And even those arguments have no standing in the presence of the damning question: Is not motherhood a high calling equal to or greater than nearly any other calling a woman could choose? Why are stay-at-home mothers considered second class (mostly by freakishly feminazi fem-bots)? My dad fixes peoples telephones, he has done this and other work for the phone company for around 30 years. My mom went to college to study nursing and spent several years as an RN working with premature babies. Then she stayed home and raised us. She’s spent 27 years of her life now (that’s over half) raising a new generation, pouring herself into our education, our relationships, our joys and sorrows, our friends, our lives. What is second rate about that.

It would seem, and this is the greatest joke of all surrounding the whole idea of feminist propaganda, that a feminist ideal woman is a man, climbing the soulless corporate ladder, bringing home the bacon day after day until the day they die. What’s so great about that?

I’m browsing Bongo which I’ve Stumble(d)upon and find a pithy review of Algores Enviro-fest faux-film, An Inconvenient Truth:

An Inconvenient Truth An exaggerated slide show with the inconvenient truth that Gore is a bore. ~Jack Palethorpe

… and a narcissistic self-loathing (yes I know those are mutually exclusive terms, but he is both self-loving (his own person) and self-loathing (his humanity) at the same time) overweight… well I’ll just keep the rest of the words I was thinking to myself, I’m sure you have plenty that fit just fine.

In case you can’t tell, I’m very angry at the evil Algore is fomenting. Evil, you ask? Yes, his lies, made from a position of carefully studied and purposeful ignorance, cause the creation of policies which cause harm to people without moral justification or even positive outcome. Businesses must spend money enacting meaningless or harmful processes which cost them money with no benefit or return which then forces them to spend less on expanding or improving their own core competencies, creating new jobs or paying workers more. Governments take more money from an already over-taxed populace to use for creating and enforcing restrictive policies which subvert the rights and usurp the responsibilities of the individual.

Because of environmental zombies and their accompanying hard-won policies, DDT is not used in Africa, where it would all but eradicate Malaria, one of the worst killers in that beautiful continent filled with so much trouble. Science says DDT kills? No, a novel, yes, that’s right, a NOVEL spinning a heart rending story of a dream of a silent spring twisted the brainless spineless pointless morons which populate so many government positions and a policy is born. And innocents die.

I’m Not Sorry

NotSorryAboutOurPresident.com is a wonderful site. The problem is, apparently more hateful ignorant people have time to vote at its anti-site. Go, post. It takes like ten seconds. If you already have something to say.

And Two Lists To Top It Off

50 Things Men Wish Women Knew

50 Things Women Wish Men Knew

These are good. Very good. I think. (see below)

##Edit##

The lists are mostly good. They do focus a bit on married couples and the benefits and issues contained in such a relationship. Just so you’re forewarned. I hadn’t read the entire lists before I posted. They’re still worth reading though.

I was reading an article in the April issue of NEA Today about military recruiters in schools. Despite the union’s position on the subject, I was surprised to discover the article is pretty even-handed. It covers both sides of the issue, both the NEA’s and the military’s perspective, and the key parts of the article, the opening and closing, focus on the military’s outreach program to teachers and patriotism… surprising coming from an NEA, which opposes recruiters in schools, etc.

The article praised the Tucson Unified School District’s policy on recruiters: “Tucson Unified distributes a card that lets parents opt in on having their child’s contact information sent to the Department of Defense for recruiting purposes.” This is the opposite from what the NCLB requires. Schools must provide the DOD with student contact info unless parents opt out. The article went on, “Tucson’s more restrictive opt-in approach is the same one that the NEA advocates.”

The NEA understands the power of “OPT-IN” and “OPT-OUT” systems and relies on them heavily. Rather than sticking to intellectual honesty and consistency, however, it supports the option that best serves its interest.

For example, the NEA gets a majority of its political funding through an OPT-OUT system, presuming teachers want to underwrite its political agenda and putting independent-thinking teacher at a disadvantage. Yet, when it comes to the U.S. military, the NEA supports an OPT-IN system that puts the cause of its political opponents at a disadvantage.

In most states, the NEA automatically deducts political contributions from teachers’ paychecks. While the deductions usually have to be authorized, the union hides the authorization papers in the confusing stacks of initial paperwork. Teachers are often rushed or overwhelmed when filling out the forms, so they don’t often scrutinize what they are doing. They simply trust the union and district. As a result, the deductions often slip by without much thought. After all, they are consumed with teaching your kids.

When given a true, clear choice, though, a vast majority of teacher opt out of supporting the union’s politics.
In Washington state, when the union was finally forced to go to an opt-in system, contributions dropped from 80 percent of membership to 11 percent.
In Utah, when the union was forced to do the same, PAC contributions dropped from 68 percent of membership to 7 percent.

This is amazing! While many teachers support the union’s efforts to collectively bargain and help them at the local level, they refuse to fund the union’s political agenda.

But the teachers unions continue to defend their political OPT-OUT programs… with member dues. In 2005, an initiative that would have created an OPT-IN system similar to Washington state’s and Utah’s faced California voters. The teachers union spent more than $100 million in member dues to prevent members from having a choice.

It may be common knowledge, but in relationships and communication, we can never be reminded enough of the differences in communication that generally exist between the males and females of the species Homo Sapien.

A married couple was in a car when the wife turned to her husband and asked, “Would you like to stop for a coffee?”

“No, thanks,” he answered truthfully. So they didn’t stop.

The result? The wife, who had indeed wanted to stop, became annoyed because she felt her preference had not been considered. The husband, seeing his wife was angry, became frustrated. Why didn’t she just say what she wanted?

Unfortunately, he failed to see that his wife was asking the question not to get an instant decision, but to begin a negotiation. And the woman didn’t realize that when her husband said no, he was just expressing his preference, not making a ruling. When a man and woman interpret the same interchange in such conflicting ways, it’s no wonder they can find themselves leveling angry charges of selfishness and obstinacy at each other.

Enjoy your differences, and don’t forget them.

France Poised To Elect Conservative

In a development which surprises even me, France appears set to elect a conservative Prime Minister. The two opponents racing for the PM seat in France are as diametrically opposite as possible, and the communist-sympathizing far-left socialist is running a solid second. France is a liberals dream: guaranteed everything for everybody, and therefore nobody has anything. Maybe the French people, who have historically been strong on ideas and short on courage or persistence, are going to turn a new leaf, testing the more practical forms of personal responsibility.

Free Political Speech Gets Its Day In Court

The McCain-Feingold amendment is being reviewed by the Supreme Court, and it stands a major chance of sustaining significant changes. While its stated aim was to limit so called ‘soft money’ influencing elections, the amendment has had a more practical effect of causing regular law-abiding citizens to glance over their shoulders when speaking on political subjects too close to the elections. I do not believe McCain is presidential material, he has morals, but not ethics. He believes in many things strongly, but his stands are often far from right.

Rosie Is A <insert favorite epithet here>

Regardless of the official line from whoever gives out official lines at ABC, Rosie’s got to go. From the ‘Queen of nice’ to political-correctness-protected ‘shock-jock queen’, Rosie’s descent into debauchery of the mind and mouth has finally caught up with her, at least for now. Spouting things which would have gotten any male, regardless of race, sacked long ago with prejudice, Rosie disdained alternate views on the aptly singular “The View”. The modern liberal, sans compunction or any sense of personal shame or others inherent worth, her only purpose lay in denigrating ad hominem attacks and barbed and hateful name-calling. It’s about time she’s gone, and I hope, for all our sake, that no network will be crass enough to take her crass self on.

Is Microsoft’s plan a scheme to net unwary victims into its net or an honest effort to help underdeveloped countries progress toward the technological age?

[Microsoft] wants to bring computing to a further one billion people by 2015.

The [One Laptop per Child project is] in the final stages of developing a low cost [$100], durable laptop, designed to work specifically in an educational context.

Read article here:

The move is very savy from a business perspective. It is a humanitarian cause that will expand Microsoft’s customer base.

Yes, corporations are in it for their own good, their bottom line. Publicly held corporations rarely have a true “conscience” because the real bosses are stockholders who have a simple, natural and undestandable self-interest in profit.

What some misunderstand (such as unions engaged in corporate campaigns) is the old cliche, “What is good for the customer is good for the corporation.” Businesses that do not meet a demand do not exist. Therefore, a corporation will not naturally do or sell things that are bad for the customer (I define “bad” as “against the will” of customers because people demand products that are bad for themselves such as cigarettes, sugar, cars, etc.)

In this case, what is good for Microsoft, expanding the user base, is good for the countries interested in the project, providing technology to citizens to increase their educational and economic viability. This is good business.

Asimov, arguably Americas most original and best author, ever, has these wise thoughts on intelligence:

What Is Intelligence, Anyway?
Isaac Asimov

What is intelligence, anyway? When I was in the army, I received the kind of aptitude test that all soldiers took and, against a normal of 100, scored 160. No one at the base had ever seen a figure like that, and for two hours they made a big fuss over me. (It didn’t mean anything. The next day I was still a buck private with KP – kitchen police – as my highest duty.)

All my life I’ve been registering scores like that, so that I have the complacent feeling that I’m highly intelligent, and I expect other people to think so too. Actually, though, don’t such scores simply mean that I am very good at answering the type of academic questions that are considered worthy of answers by people who make up the intelligence tests – people with intellectual bents similar to mine?

For instance, I had an auto-repair man once, who, on these intelligence tests, could not possibly have scored more than 80, by my estimate. I always took it for granted that I was far more intelligent than he was. Yet, when anything went wrong with my car I hastened to him with it, watched him anxiously as he explored its vitals, and listened to his pronouncements as though they were divine oracles – and he always fixed my car.

Well, then, suppose my auto-repair man devised questions for an intelligence test. Or suppose a carpenter did, or a farmer, or, indeed, almost anyone but an academician. By every one of those tests, I’d prove myself a moron, and I’d be a moron, too. In a world where I could not use my academic training and my verbal talents but had to do something intricate or hard, working with my hands, I would do poorly. My intelligence, then, is not absolute but is a function of the society I live in and of the fact that a small subsection of that society has managed to foist itself on the rest as an arbiter of such matters.

Consider my auto-repair man, again. He had a habit of telling me jokes whenever he saw me. One time he raised his head from under the automobile hood to say: “Doc, a deaf-and-mute guy went into a hardware store to ask for some nails. He put two fingers together on the counter and made hammering motions with the other hand. The clerk brought him a hammer. He shook his head and pointed to the two fingers he was hammering. The clerk brought him nails. He picked out the sizes he wanted, and left. Well, doc, the next guy who came in was a blind man. He wanted scissors. How do you suppose he asked for them?”

Indulgently, I lifted by right hand and made scissoring motions with my first two fingers. Whereupon my auto-repair man laughed raucously and said, “Why, you dumb jerk, He used his voice and asked for them.” Then he said smugly, “I’ve been trying that on all my customers today.” “Did you catch many?” I asked. “Quite a few,” he said, “but I knew for sure I’d catch you.” “Why is that?” I asked. “Because you’re so goddamned educated, doc, I knew you couldn’t be very smart.”

And I have an uneasy feeling he had something there.

They say the more intelligent you are, the harder it can be to take tests. You’ll be thinking of exceptions and odd cases and times when the correct answer isn’t necessarily correct. Or you’ll be second-guessing the actual intent of the questions. I’ve always done well on multiple-choice tests, to the point that many times I don’t need to study to get a passing score, but this only works if I force myself to look at each question only twice, once when I put down my gut instinct answer, and once when I check for obvious mistakes. Any more thinking has to be against the rules (for me).

It’s not easy being nice

I’m a nice guy. I’m the safe friend. I don’t take advantage of my female friends. A coworker asked me yesterday if I’d ever ‘gone all the way’ with any of my numerous and lovely friends from the ballroom. I told him I’m a virgin. I’m waiting to ‘go all the way’ with that one woman after we’ve said “I do.” The ‘nice guy’ is not appreciated often. I’m fortunate in that way, my friends do appreciate me and tell me so. But for all you ‘nice guys’ out there who do not get the appreciation, here’s yours:

This is a tribute to the nice guys. The nice guys that finish last, that never become more than friends, that endure hours of whining and bitching about what assholes guys are, while disproving the very point. This is dedicated to those guys who always provide a shoulder to lean on but restrain themselves to tentative hugs, those guys who hold open doors and give reassuring pats on the back and sit patiently outside the changing room at department stores. This is in honor of the guys that obligingly reiterate how cute/beautiful/smart/funny/sexy their female friends are at the appropriate moment, because they know most girls need that litany of support. This is in honor of the guys with open minds, with laid-back attitudes, with honest concern. This is in honor of the guys who respect a girl’s every facet, from her privacy to her theology to her clothing style.

Read the rest of this Ode To Nice Guys published in the Wharton Undergraduate Journal.

The Hayward teachers union has been on strike for over a week . Approximately 180 substitutes are filling in for 1,300 teachers who are on strike. But these public servants are being labeled scabs and singled out for harassment.

A local newspaper reported that the teachers union has posted photos of “scabs” on a blog for public viewing. The union says it is not resorting to physical aggression, but this “hall of shame” serves no purpose but to publicly harass and ridicule dedicated teachers.

While teachers have a qualified and controversial right to demand higher wages and even strike, they do not have the right to ridicule and shame other law-abiding teachers into compliance with union anarchy.

As the article concludes, “It’s one thing to take advantage of free speech to get out the message that they want higher wages. It’s another to throw sand on the playground.”

Caring doesn’t mean anything unless there are actions and changes that show we really do care. Take many of the popular causes and movements today, celebrities find it easy publicity to adopt a cause and become an instant expert/spokesperson. They care, we say, and all is well. But take the recent flap over ‘one-square-of-toilet-paper’ Crow and the accommodations she requires for herself and her crew on tour. Sure she cares, but when you’re riding in style in 4 buses and 3 tractor-trailers from one gig to another, it isn’t obvious. As humans most of us have only 5 senses, and we can only sense physical occurrences. If someone says they care, we only know it by hearing them say it. We cannot judge their actual heart. As a human they are aware of that limitation as well. Words are truly empty in most cases and situations. There is precious little that anyone can say that I can believe at face value. Actions, however, do indeed speak louder than words. You act and I have little trouble believing you. Actions can be felt, seen, and heard, and sometimes even smelt.

Sheryl ‘one-square’ Crow does not care, says me. Why do I know this? Out of her entire entourage there is only one bio-diesel bus. That is her only action, compared with the veritable crowd of hangers-on and train of baggage. And what is bio-diesel? It doesn’t pollute less, it’s just made from green things. Imagine that.

Now a science lesson: Where did all the oil and coal that is so plentiful in this earth come from? Ahhh, it came from organic matter, decayed plants and animal corpses, green stuff, right? And it doesn’t take any work from us to create it, only to get it. Bio-diesel doesn’t require any extra work from us to get, but it takes energy to make it. I’m not familiar with any study of the differences between energy required to retrieve and refine naturally made oil and the energy required to make bio-diesel, but I’d be willing to bet they’re not that different (that wasn’t part of the lesson, that was opinion, but I believe it was justified).

Similar to the issues of these hybrid cars. Did you know the amount of energy involved in making a hybrid is so high, it is easier on the environment if you drive a bloated, overgrown, ugly H3 because from inception to several years of driving, the H3 uses less energy. I know much of this disparity will fade and disappear as more people use the hybrid cars, as improvements are made in the manufacture of the hybrids. The more of any one device you make, the cheaper it is overall to make each device.

But coming back to the heart of this issue. Global warming may indeed be occurring, the but the evidence does NOT support claims that man is any more than extremely slightly responsible for any of that warming. As I’ve written here before, sun spots contribute a substantial amount of the energy and warming that occurs on earth. The same people who today are crying about the end of the world, only 30 years ago were crying that we were all going to freeze to death in a new Ice Age. There is no memory, and less truth to these people. Want to know how I know that? Their actions are screaming at me, I can’t hear their words.