Raising the Minimum Wage

I knew a person who ran for a seat on the County Board of Supervisors in this past election.  This person is an avowed socialist and loudly advocates for a $15/hr minimum wage--whether the recipient lives in urban San Francisco or rural Susanville.  As I've stated so many times in the past, logic is not a strong suit of lefties.  Crazy Old Uncle Jerry already signed a $15/hr minimum wage into law in California, to be phased in over the next few years, but this potential county supervisor wants it implemented in Sacramento Country much more rapidly.

I know a woman whose husband died two years ago; since then she's kept his business afloat.  She employs half a dozen workers in a small business that netted less money last year than I did.  The woman, who now oversees the business and takes care of the books and payroll, is the lowest paid employee of the company (incorporation requires that she draw a salary).  I told the prospective politician that a $15/hr minimum wage would put the woman out of business--and her 6 employees out of work.  It's not that they don't make $15/hr already, but why would someone who makes $16/hr want to do a strenuous job when plenty of non-strenuous jobs will be available at about the same pay?  The prospective politician's reply was that of someone who only understands Marxist economics:  just raise prices!  His belief was that if all prices went up a little, the increased pay would help those on the lower end of the pay scale a lot.  I looked at him incredulously:  don't you think if she thought the market would bear increased prices, she'd already have raised them?  He stopped the debate at that point, having no response to my real-world application of his fantasy world economics.

He did not win the election.

We've read (and I've posted) many stories about businesses that shutter or leave California for lower cost environs, but the utopians press on.  "When the facts contradict your expectations, believe the facts"--but they don't, they believe only their own failed ideology, despite the evidence:

Bibliophile Kelley Ulmer closed her Almost Perfect Book Store on Wednesday after 25 years of business at Rocky Ridge Drive and Douglas Boulevard in Roseville, saying that the added expense from minimum-wage increases had made it impossible for her to continue operating.

“We used to joke that this was like the Hotel California: Once you got here, you’d never leave,” Ulmer said. “And realistically, it wasn’t a bad deal prior to the ever-increasing minimum wage. I had a profit-share with my employees, so at the end of the week, when they got their paychecks, whatever money didn’t go toward bills or whatever, I shared with them. They actually made more money at $7 an hour than they make at $10"...

Ulmer’s six employees have worked for her for 10 years or more. Jeffrey “Scott” Singley, who has worked there for 24 years, said that he’s still in shock over the closure and that he’s angry with lawmakers. “I’m going to take advantage of the government’s largesse since they put me in this position, so it’s unemployment as of tomorrow,” he said. “Or, at least I’m going to file as of tomorrow.”

Ulmer said she hasn’t had one unemployment claim in 25 years, but now the state will have six of them...

“I could either pay my employees or pay my rent. I paid my employees,” Ulmer said. “Now I can’t do either. It’s just too much. There’s literally no place to absorb the cost. They were like, ‘Well, the businesses can just absorb it.’ OK, where? Can we not pay our taxes? I get no government funding, no subsidies, no tax breaks, and I’m taxed at the same level that the big corporations are.”

Note that this stinging article comes from the major Sacramento newspaper, which is firmly left-wing.

Hat tip to reader MikeAT for the link.

Where Socialism Leads

As the Instapundit likes to remind us, "socialism means standing in line."  However, sometimes--think Cuba or Cambodia or North Korea--sometimes socialism means "citizens are required to work in the fields for harvest".  Add Venezuela to that list:

With the Venezuelan economy predicted to shrink 10% this year and an anticipated inflation rate of 700%, the government of President Nicolas Maduro has been ruling by executive decree.

The country is currently mired in a food crisis of unprecedented proportions. Severe shortages of basics like milk, eggs, and flour have driven tens of thousands of citizens across the border into Colombia searching for food. At the sight of shelves full of food, they weep.

The crisis goes beyond food shortages. CNN Money reports:

Venezuela is deep into a humanitarian crisis -- people are dying in ill-equipped hospitals and many live without basic food items. Venezuela can't pay to import goods because its government is desperately strapped for cash after years of mismanagement of its funds, heavy spending on poorly-run government programs, and lack of investment on its oil fields.

International humanitarian organizations have been mostly blocked from assisting because Maduro doesn't trust them. Instead, Maduro issued a decree recently ordering citizens to leave their jobs in the private sector to be put to work in the fields....

Socialism doesn't work, and the more extreme the socialism, the less it works.

I remember Hugo Chavez' "sulfur" and "devil" comments directed at President Bush when Chavez spoke at the United Nations a decade or so ago.  He was one banging shoe away from "We will bury you", but like Krushchev, he turned out to be wrong.

Good Advice Regarding Unexpected Expenses

This summer I've had some significant unexpected expenses:  car repairs, water heater replacement, garage door opener repair.  These repairs have totaled over $1000, and there are several hundred more on the way.

A friend of mine since high school has often shared with me some wisdom his mother shared with him regarding such expenditures:  be thankful you have enough money to pay for them, many people don't.

So while I'm not ecstatic about having to pay out so much money, I'm not despondent or worried, either.  I've had the money to cover these bills.  And I find that his mom's words, reflecting an "attitude of gratitude" rather than a whiny lament, are a much more helpful way to look at the world.

"The Wrong Side of History"

I have a friend who tells me my social views (which would be considered ultra-conservative in San Francisco and ultra-liberal in Salt Lake City, so I consider them "moderate") place me on "the wrong side of history".  Such phrasing is reminiscent of "check your privilege", one of those phrases that's supposed to bring all discussion to an immediate halt, with the recipient leaving the field in clear and obvious defeat.

As they would say in the 90's, "homey don't play that game".

The American Conservative published a great piece on the culture wars; the author is far more eloquent than I, but captured my sentiments perfectly:

You hear this kind of thing a lot from social liberals who genuinely believe that nothing serious is at stake in the culture war. If conservatives would just roll over and accept that the liberal view is naturally, obviously correct, we could get back to our “real” problems. Thiel is the sort of person who looks at pro-Brexit voters and cannot imagine why they didn’t understand that their material interests were with the Remain side. What people like Thiel — really intelligent people, let us stipulate! — don’t understand is that not everybody values the things they do. Real, important things are being struggled over...

Culturally speaking, to be born in many places in the US is to suffer an irreversible lifelong defeat. If you come from a culturally conservative region, or family, you understand that the people who make the decisions in this culture are on the other side. At best they regard you as irrelevant. At worst, they hate you, and want to grind your nose in the dirt. Whatever the case, the things you value, that are important to your identity, and your sense of how the world is supposed to work, are either fading away or being taken from you — and you can’t do anything about it...

There is a widespread sense that the way the socially liberal globalist perceives the world is the end of history, as opposed to something constructed and particular to this time and place...

Back to Thiel’s assertion that the culture wars are not real. They are certainly real, in that they define what it means to be human, what it means to be a member of society, how we are to live together, and so on. I doubt a gay man in 1980s rural Alabama would say the culture wars aren’t real. Similarly, a traditionalist Catholic living in San Francisco in 2016 wouldn’t say the culture wars aren’t real. “Universal culture” only seems so to people who live in its artificial bubble.

By the way, I'm sure "wrong side of history" and "check your privilege" are types of logical fallacies, but I can't identify which type specifically.

This Makes Me Suspicious

This "infomercial" is about lenses you can snap onto your smartphone camera and have awesome pictures:

Images produced by our lenses have been tested and found to equal or exceed the photos produced by such top makers as Zeiss, Leica, Nikon, Canon and Sony. We're extremely proud to have manufactured such a high quality product at such a modest price point, thanks to computer design and advanced CCD fabrication.

This isn't rocket science and there's no reason these lenses shouldn't work, and work well.  However, my shields go up and the "red alert" klaxon blares when my BS Detector is triggered, as it is here:

These Ultra High Quality lenses are being released in limited quantities. I’d advise you to grab your set before the super low introductory price is raised.

Outside of an artist, why would anyone limit the number of items they're selling?  Why release limited quantities of these lenses?  That doesn't make sense to me.  That's not how you make money.

It's entirely possible that the meaning was that there are limited quantities available at the introductory price--but that isn't what was said.  It's also possible that the sentences quoted above were meant to motivate someone to purchase the lenses right away! but if so, they were just poorly worded.

As written, the sentences don't make sense.  It looks like a lot of work went into creating that ad, how could something so obviously suspicious slip through?

US Teacher Pay and Abilities

An interesting international comparison:

If you think the skills of American teachers don’t stack up to those of teachers in other countries, you’re wrong—American teachers are perfectly mediocre. Well, in fairness, American teachers seem to be a touch above average in literacy skills and noticeably below average in numeracy. They shine in neither area. “Mediocre” means middling. I guess some country has to be in the middle, but that’s not how we Americans like to picture ourselves. For me, American teachers being middle-of-the-pack isn’t good enough. I expect—at least if you’re an American reader of Chalkboard—that you too want the U.S. to be a world leader in education.

If this reads like a knock against American teachers, that’s not quite the intention. It is intended as a knock against American policymakers. We in fact get much better teachers than we pay for. More on this below.

Go read the whole thing, it's not that long.

Please, Oh Please, Democrats, Double Down On This One!

If doubling down is good, then tripling down would be even better!

Hillary Clinton and the Democrats are taking their gun reform message full-bore into the general election, betting that a shift in voter sentiment has turned a once-toxic issue into a political winner.

Gun control has emerged as one of the most prominent pillars of Clinton's 2016 platform, partly because she used it to draw a contrast with Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), her former primary opponent, and his mixed voting record on the issue.

But many leading gun-control advocates, including Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.), say Clinton has made it clear the issue will remain at the top of her agenda as she battles Donald Trump and the Republicans heading into November.

No Democratic issue will help Republicans more.

Complexity Isn't A Bug, It's A Feature

I'm not so cynical as to think that the primary goal of California's new school grading system is to be opaque and incomprehensible, but after seeing this new system it's difficult to come to the conclusion that such goals weren't considered at all:

California’s proposed new evaluation system will use a colors — lots of colors — to evaluate schools by lots of factors, reports the Orange County Register.

The old Academic Performance Index, suspended in March 2015,  generated a single number based on test scores:  800 was the goal. Schools could be compared against schools with similar demographics. Parents could see how a school’s API score changed over time or check performance by subgroups.

The color-coded California Model shows boxes for test scores, attendance, dropout rates, English proficiency, access to advanced classes in high school, parent involvement, suspension rates and more.

The API may have been “simplistic,” the new system is so complicated it’s incomprehensible, editorializes the Los Angeles Times.

See the colors at the top link.

Third Time's A Charm

I have not been a fan of the first two "reboot" (or "Kelvin timeline") Star Trek movies.  They're not bad movies, but they are bad Star Trek.  The original Star Trek--in fact, Star Trek in all its iterations--was about interactions between the characters.  The original series (TOS) was built on the interactions between Kirk, Spock, and McCoy.  In the first two Kelvin Timeline films, Kirk and Spock were the main characters and the others, including McCoy, were just there to take up space.

Fortunately, that has changed in Star Trek: Beyond.  McCoy became a full partner in this movie, which can only help the franchise.  Additionally, there were many homages to previous movies and TV series (I'd mention them, but don't want to include spoilers).

There was an dedication/acknowledgement of Leonard Nimoy's death.  Know what choked me up, though?  "To Anton".

#IStandWithAxanar

An OK Start, But More Fallout Is Needed

When you write false articles about gang rape, there should be a penalty to be paid:

Rollings Stone recently “terminated” its contract with Sabrina Rubin Erdely, the reporter who wrote the debunked article about the gang rape of a University of Virginia student.

Erdely’s status with Rolling Stone has been kept under wraps since UVA dean Nicole Eramo sued the magazine for defamation because of its reporter’s Nov. 2014 article “A Rape on Campus.” In previous disclosures Erdely appeared to still be employed by the magazine...

But after the article was published, it came to light that Coakley had lied about the gang rape and that Erdely failed to conduct basic journalistic due diligence to verify the claims.

There are still lawsuits a-brewin' over that article, and rightly so.

Wonder Woman

My knowledge of Wonder Woman is limited to the 70s TV series starring Lynda Carter; I never read the comic books, so I have to ask this:  in the comic books, was Wonder Woman a violent butt-kicker?  Carter's Wonder Woman used the minimum force necessary to subdue her opponents, and I don't recall that she ever killed anyone.  Was that how Wonder Woman was supposed to be, or was that just 70s TV?  I ask because I'm trying to determine if the new Wonder Woman movie is doing a disservice to the ideals of Wonder Woman:

Also, this movie appears to take place during World War I; Wonder Woman's character wasn't created until 1941 and I thought she fought the Nazis....

Star Trek: Discovery

The new (but pre-Kirk) ship looks half-Klingon to me, but I kinda like it.  Too bad I won't be able to see the show because I won't pay for CBS's streaming service:


I'm supposed to see Star Trek: Beyond tomorrow with a friend from work.

#IStandWithAxanar

Random Trip Pics

The Bow, in Calgary

I May Never Get To Retire

In order to help make CalSTRS (teachers retirement system) solvent, a law passed a couple years ago required California teachers, districts, and (I think) the state all to contribute more towards teacher retirement.  Even before this occurred, California teachers were paying well above what they would into Social Security, with the understanding that they'd receive more than they would under social security in retirement.  We've been promised so much, though, that we're now having to pay more to get the same retirement we were promised.

CalSTRS wants us to believe the funding crisis has passed.  I'm not so sure:

Earlier this week, CalPERS—California’s pension fund for most public employees—reported abysmal annual earnings of 0.61 percent, a tiny fraction of the seven-and-a-half percent annual returns needed to keep it solvent over the long run. And its sister fund for teachers, CalSTRS, isn’t doing much better. The Wall Street Journal reports:

The nation’s second-largest public pension posted its slimmest returns since the 2008-2009 financial crisis because of heavy losses in stocks.

The California State Teachers’ Retirement System, or Calstrs, earned 1.4% for the fiscal year ended June 30, according to a Tuesday news release. The result is the lowest since a 25% loss in fiscal 2009 and well below Calstrs’ long-term investment target of 7.5%. Calstrs oversees retirement benefits for 896,000 teachers.

As Steven Malanga has noted, both of these union-managed funds are notorious for pulling political stunts even as they face gaping shortfalls, going on a misguided “green” investing binge that flushed taxpayer money down the drain, and pulling out of tobacco companies on moral grounds just before those stocks began to rise.

I retire in 12 more years, any bets on STRS' solvency then?

Interesting Double Standards

Rachel Maddow thinks her viewers will get the vapors seeing "Hillary for Prison" political pins? 

Reminder: Rachel Maddow was a protégé of former MSNBC anchor/spittle-flecked raver Keith Olbermann, who in 2008 when Hillary was hanging on during the Democrat primaries and slowing Obama’s inevitable coronation, demanded someone from the Democratic Party “take her into a room and only he comes out.”

She debuted on Air America, also home to Randi Rhodes, who in 2008 was suspended from the now-defunct leftwing talk radio network for describing Hillary as a “big f***ing whore” and the since-deceased Geraldine Ferraro, the first woman nominated to be vice president as “David Duke in Drag” for supporting Hillary that year.

But Maddow thinks a few anti-Hillary campaign buttons will cause her fellow lefties to dive for the fainting couches?

Earlier: Maddow Rambles For Three Minutes on “Incredibly Radical” “Openly Gay” Republican Peter Thiel.

I’m old enough to remember when being dubbed a “radical” was a compliment by lefties.

Random Trip Pics

Reflections of Calgary:

The VCR

Bought my first VCR in 1987.  I still have one.  It's not connected to my tv (although it could be), but when I switched to DVD I decided not to replace all my movies--so I copied them onto DVD instead.  They're still watchable, if not flawless.

But what to do with all those VHS tapes, some of which are so old they contain video of Army beating Navy in football?  They're in a box in an out of the way place in the garage.  I don't want someone to see all these home-burned DVDs and think I illegally downloaded the movies or something; no, I'm keeping the tapes.

So what prompted me to talk about VHS?  This article:

Funai Electric, the last company known to make VCRs, is ceasing production.

Random Trip Pics

Nanton, Alberta

Vul-Con Celebrity Guests

I attended all the guest Q&A's except for Julie Cobb/Rosemary Morgan, which cost extra.
Adam Nimoy, Leonard's son

Garrett Wang, who was not an official Vul-con guest but shows up almost every year (Voyager)

Sally Kellerman (appeared in TOS 2nd pilot Where No Man Has Gone Before)

Robin Curtis (Star Trek III and IV)

Manu Intiraymi (Voyager)

Robert Beltran (Voyager)

Andrew Robinson (DS9)

Dominic Keating (Enterprise)

I found the Q&A's illuminating.  Some of the actors didn't like their colleagues.  Some didn't like the way the writers treated their characters.  Some seemed to be acting, not being all that genuine ("actor's gonna act").  Some seemed to be real people.  Well worth the money.

Jive Turkey

In the aftermath of what clearly seems like a staged coup to give cover to a purge, Turkey's government has (rather quickly identified and) rounded up over 50,000 people, teachers among them:

Teachers, journalists, police and judges alike have been caught in a net authorities are casting wider by the day, in what is increasingly looking like a witch-hunt to suppress dissent.

Last month, when teachers clashed with police in Oaxaca, Mexico, the press was all over it.  The National Education Association has certainly addressed Oaxaca.  If you want to hear crickets chirping, however, go see the lack of any mention of Turkey over at NEA's web site.  Why do you think that might be?  Hmm, I wonder.

Random Trip Pics

Seen in Calgary

click to enlarge

Bridges By Santiago Calatrava

I've now crossed three Calatrava bridges:
Redding, California

Venice, Italy

Calgary, Alberta

Random Trip Pic

Reflections of Calgary:

Home! Now Let's Look At Some Pictures!

Living out of a small travel trailer for almost 2 weeks and having to rely on campground wifi certainly imposes limitations! I promised pictures, though, and now you shall have them (in addition to what I showed previously).

First, the town of Vulcan, Alberta:

Note the empty plaza with the Spock bust in it. The first morning of the convention that changed, though, when Leonard Nimoy's son Adam unveiled a new plaque in honor of his father:

The convention itself was 2 days of great fun. Yes, there were plenty of people dressed in costume, including yours truly for a bit:

There was a dinner/dance on Saturday evening, and the food was great. Dessert was awesome!

I even won some goodies in the silent auction on Sunday! And then it was off to Calgary:

The Olympic Park is used for outdoor sports these days:

Drove through the Rockies on the Trans-Canada Highway, passing through Banff and Revelstoke:

And then stayed a couple nights in Kamloops:

What a great trip--and I'm going camping for a couple days next week!

Star Trek Continues, Episode 6

Star Trek Continues, Episode 5

Star Trek Continues, Episode 4

Pictures

Looks like the wifi is strong with this one tonight, so I'll try to post a few pictures.  Currently I'm camped just across the river from "downtown" Kamloops, British Columbia.  Looks like a storm might be a-brewin', the wind was so strong that I had to take down the canopy!  But anyway, pictures (as usual, click to embiggen):

 View from the 600+ foot Calgary Tower

 My new friend, no squirrel

Calgary Tower

Wifi is crapping out, all I could get uploaded before that was these three pics of Calgary.  Hope I can post this!