Yeah, it is an open thread.
Feel free to talk about whatever. I mentioned candidates in a recent open thread, and I think it kind of killed the conversation for anyone who didn’t want to talk about that. So I just want to underline that barring violations of the comment policy, you can talk about whatever in the Open Threads. In theory I’ll get back to more threads with topics soon.
Ted Cruz endorses gold standard and predicts stock market crash.
http://www.cnbc.com/2016/04/15.....rowth.html
Roger Rabbit Commentary: So does every gold salesman in America. They’ve all been wrong. Cruz is wrong, too.
The gold standard caused the Great Depression. Why would anyone in their right mind vote for a goldbug? You’d have to hate your country, yourself, and your neighbors to vote for this man. He’s just another Federal Reserve-hating wingnut preaching biblical economics.
Meanwhile short sellers, market timers and mattress stuffers keep having more shitty days, one right after another.
“If Donald Drumpf is denied the nomination and has more votes than Ted Cruz or John Kasich, the Republican Party will fracture and Hillary Clinton will become the next president. Most polling backs that up. So if he does get the nomination, the Republican Party could very well be slaughtered in November — not only on the presidential ticket, but also in the House and Senate.”
Oh please, Magic Falafel.. Make it so!
Something about rats and ships.
This is what a cow looks like after Teapublican Dildonistas like Ted Cruz are put in charge of them.
And they want to be put in charge of the whole damn country?
What she said.
Double.
@6 What the laws of man can’t get under control, the laws of nature will.
Finally! After years of searching, I’ve finally found an actual example of “waste, fraud, and abuse” in public spending.
http://www.theatlantic.com/pol.....is/478413/
Roger Rabbit Commentary: So here we have U. of California-Davis poobahs spending $175,000 of taxpayer money for paying consultants to erase a notorious incident of police abuse from the internet. It didn’t even work. Google “UC Davis pepper spray incident” and see what comes up! (Spoiler alert: The university paid a bigger settlement to the fired campus cop than to the students he pepper sprayed.)
Yes, government should regulate how employers can schedule their workers. The employers had their chance. Now it’s time to impose civilized behavior on them.
http://www.theatlantic.com/bus.....15/478347/
Roger Rabbit Commentary: There should be one simple rule: If you demand that a worker put his/her time at your disposal as a condition of employment, then the law should require you to pay the worker for that time, regardless of whether you have work for them. In other words, time is money. If you take someone’s time, then you give them money, at least $15/hr. No exceptions.
“Often, hourly workers don’t know when, or how much, they’re going to work during any given week. Many workers, particularly in the hospitality and retail industries, are asked to show up at only a few hours’ notice; some find themselves receiving such calls on days they didn’t expect to work. And an even larger number of workers are unaware of their schedules until a couple days before they’re to report to work, making it difficult for them to coordinate childcare, medical appointments, and schooling.
“Meanwhile, ignoring a request to show up on short notice might jeopardize future assignments. And when workers do show up, they sometimes can be sent home earlier than they were scheduled to, and “getting cut” means they don’t make money for the hours they expected to work but didn’t.
“This sort of scheduling insecurity is increasingly pervasive, especially among young workers. According to a 2014 University of Chicago study, 41 percent of workers aged 26 to 32 don’t know their work schedules at least a week in advance. And, 74 percent of workers in the same group report that they work a different number of hours week to week: One week, it might be 12 hours. The next, it could be 40. Recently, The Wall Street Journal reported that attorneys general in eight states and Washington, D.C., have started scrutinizing the scheduling practices of more than a dozen large retailers.”
This kind of stuff is bullshit. And it isn’t the half of it. Many employers also make people work split shifts, rotating shifts, and variable shifts. Having to work graveyard one week, and day shift the following week, had adverse health effects. Employers don’t care. But there are even worse abuses than this.
The second worst abuse is the split shift: You’re told to show up, let’s say, at 7:00AM to work during the morning rush, then you’re sent home at 9:00AM and told to come back later to work from 4:00PM to 6:00PM.
The worst abuse, of course, is being ordered to show up at 7:00AM, left waiting around until noon, then told there’s no work for you today and sent home without pay.
This is what an unregulated workplace looks like. This is how employers behave under a laissez-faire system that lets the “free market” to sort everything out. Another, and better word, for it is “anarchy.” There’s a reason why all human societies have governments and rules. It’s because anarchy doesn’t work.
So stop bleating about the virtues of unregulated capitalism. That’s not a virtuous system. Regulated capitalism works. And that’s what I vote for.
Ill admit I’m more a headlines person if there isn’t the need to learn more, so I didn’t read the article – but I wonder if there are any gay performers in the circus?
I wonder if North Carolina makes decisions do clearly thought out like they did on this one. Wonder if they’ll learn anything? Probably not. But I think other states are learning from thier mistake. North Varolina thought they could get away with committing a modern day lynching. Sucks to be them.
Cirque du Soleil cancels shows in N.C.
http://usat.ly/1SfV7h5
@12 “I wonder if there are any gay performers in the circus?”
The article doesn’t say. That’s probably beside the point, at least for the circus. Their statement speaks of “equality for all.”
“Wonder if they’ll learn anything? Probably not.”
You answered your own question. Clearly, the Bigot Party overreached this time. But the kind of people who enact such laws are impermeable to reason and therefore have no ability to learn. We’ll see if the public outcry and boycotts can do what decency and biblical teaching cannot.