The limits of government

You won’t be able to buy a Biggie sugar soda in NYC because we need to “war against obsesity,” but by gosh by golly, you’ll still be able to abort that boy if you don’t want him solely because of gender because it’s a “war on women” to suggest otherwise.

Is it just me, or have we lost something along the way?

 

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Canaries and coal mines

So the French have no stomach for austerity measures. Do we? This would seem a good gauge: if we aren’t capable of cutting the truly unnecessary, then those who feel robbed of their free goodies will rise up a la Cloward-Piven to ensure future reward. Via Hot Air, a test of intestinal fortitude for the GOP:

Say — how’d you like to get a free cellphone?  No strings attached, no contracts, and no payments ever.  Don’t stop at one phone, either — get two, three, five, ten, twenty or more!  The cost is covered by people who are dumb enough to pay for their own cell phones … like you and me.  We’ve been doing it for a decade or more, and it’s now costing us over a billion dollars a year, as Rep. Tim Griffin (R-AR) argues as he fights to bring the program to a halt.

Griffin doesn’t plan on cutting the subsidized landline access–which doeshave safety implications–but cellular only. Even then, will the GOP survive the onslaught of taking-granny’s-phone-away media? Or are we finally able to stand up to false vilification?

Change: “the job prospects for bachelor’s degree holders fell last year to the lowest level in more than a decade.”

Lesson learned for college kids? Will they know to blame GW for their employment woes? I’m sure. Via memeorandum, the AP reports:

The college class of 2012 is in for a rude welcome to the world of work.

A weak labor market already has left half of young college graduates either jobless or underemployed in positions that don’t fully use their skills and knowledge.

Young adults with bachelor’s degrees are increasingly scraping by in lower-wage jobs — waiter or waitress, bartender, retail clerk or receptionist, for example — and that’s confounding their hopes a degree would pay off despite higher tuition and mounting student loans.

An analysis of government data conducted for The Associated Press lays bare the highly uneven prospects for holders of bachelor’s degrees.

Opportunities for college graduates vary widely.

While there’s strong demand in science, education and health fields, arts and humanities flounder. Median wages for those with bachelor’s degrees are down from 2000, hit by technological changes that are eliminating midlevel jobs such as bank tellers. Most future job openings are projected to be in lower-skilled positions such as home health aides, who can provide personalized attention as the U.S. population ages.

We know a wonderful young man about to graduate from a major state  university. He’s fortunate enough, however, to be leaving school debt-free thanks to a ROTC scholarship. And oh, he’s guaranteed a job as a newly-minted 2nd Lieutenant in the Army with an in-demand BS.

He didn’t vote for Obama, either. Go figure, eh? The kids willing to work for what they want–rather than taking the liberal bait that they’re owed something–are the ones who will emerge successful and debt-free. If only we could all be so savvy.

More from the article:

Taking underemployment into consideration, the job prospects for bachelor’s degree holders fell last year to the lowest level in more than a decade.

“I don’t even know what I’m looking for,” says Michael Bledsoe, who described months of fruitless job searches as he served customers at a Seattle coffeehouse. The 23-year-old graduated in 2010 with a creative writing degree.

Initially hopeful that his college education would create opportunities, Bledsoe languished for three months before finally taking a job as a barista, a position he has held for the last two years. In the beginning he sent three or four resumes day. But, Bledsoe said, employers questioned his lack of experience or the practical worth of his major. Now he sends a resume once every two weeks or so.

Bledsoe, currently making just above minimum wage, says he got financial help from his parents to help pay off student loans. He is now mulling whether to go to graduate school, seeing few other options to advance his career. “There is not much out there, it seems,” he said.

Emphasis my own. What a shame no one told Bledsoe that the practical worth of his major amounted to next to nothing. He is pictured with a nose ring and giant gauges in his ears. Call me old-fashioned, but I wonder how his appearance plays into his inability to garner more than a minimum wage job. (Hint: remove the jewelry, dude!) Further, he asked his parents for money to pay his loans rather than trying to find another low-paying job. No wonder it sounds like a great idea to stack up more debt! Go get that MFA!

Gender gap problem for the GOP? Maybe not.

Yesterday, An American Housewife send a mission “should we choose to accept it” to a few other ladies on Twitter. She pointed to this article from Chris Cillizza at the WaPo who gleefully notes the growing gender-gap doom for the GOP. He writes:

The number that really stands out is that among women between the ages of 18-29, Obama is beating Romney by 45 points.  Yes, 45. While Obama is leading Romney among all 18-29 years old by 28 points (61 percent to 33 percent), the fact he is down by such a vast margin among young women has to set off red flags in Republican world.

Ooooh. Those young hip and with its. At least they know what’s right.

According to the March Pew polling data, Romney narrowly edges Obama only among the over-65 ladies. Way to woo the grannies, Mitt.

I didn’t have much time to think about the data last night as we’re in another topsy-turvy crazy week. But the generational shift Cillizza pointed to does seem rather stark.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Behold, the news this morning seems much brighter. Poor Chris must’ve cried into his coffee. Ed Morrissey at Hot Air breaks down the internals from a new CBS/NYT poll where the data point in an entirely different direction:

One headline out of our poll is the shrinking gender gap. A month ago, President Obama had an 11-point lead over Mitt Romney among women voters. Today’s poll, taken after Hillary Rosen’s comments and the subsequent firestorm, puts the gap at six points.

But as everyone should know (and despite all we hear about the “female” vote), women aren’t some monolithic group. Our poll reveals sharp differences in opinion, for example, between married and single women.

Among MARRIED women, Romney leads Obama 49 to 42 percent. But among SINGLE women, Obama has a huge lead over Romney, 62 to 34 percent.

Those single Sandra Flukes like their pill covered dontcha know, and they don’t want to pay $9 a month at Target for it, either.

Should this be a surprise? Get married, have a kid or two, and suddenly your outlook changes. Drastically. You might care that those pills for single ladies now add to the mounting debt your children will have to somehow pay, and it doesn’t seems so fair after all, does it?

Morrissey breaks down the internals beautifully. The pollsters must be sweating bullets these days as they try to weight the data “fairly” to give their dude the appearance of not being as big a loser as he is. What a ride this will be over the next few months!

Does it really take a genius to guess the cultural differences of liberals and conservatives?

Apparently so. It’s supposedly “creepy” to realize MTV watchers would skew Democrat and Fox News viewers Republican. Part of the “creepiness factor” of micro-targeting voter demographics at The Atlantic:

Oooh. Those ee-vil Republicans watch golf, classic movies and ESPN! And more conservatives watch the Discovery Channel than liberals! Better cank that now!

Can hardly contain myself: liberals watch Comedy Central, Lifetime and Nickelodeon. ROTFL.

This one might upset pjHusband:

No wonder the “Beer Summit” beverages raised such a stink back in the day.

View the rest. Are there really any surprises? More GOP voters buy American-made cars. After legions of anti-Cracker Barrel and anti-Chick-fil-A campaigns, liberals don’t eat there (if they ever did) and prefer The Cheesecake Factory to any steakhouse.

The only reason this is “creepy” to the folks at The Atlantic: it evolved from Karl Rove’s strategies. If a liberal had “microtargeted” audiences in similar fashion, we’d hear about the brilliant, innovative shift it represents. But such is the world in which we live.

H/t: Hot Air headlines

UPDATE: Like Chris in the comments below, Allahpundit finds the beer preference puzzling. Heh:

It’s 4.2 percent ABV, guys. You might as well save the money and just spin around for five seconds. You’ll get the same buzz.

It’s rated 47 on Beer Advocate, for cripes sake. Who are you people? I don’t even know you anymore.

Cartoon of the day

Just add the whole row of conservative Supremes to the list.

H/t: M.

“Not everyone in the conference agrees with cutting that fast and giving that much responsibility back to the state”

So argues U. S. Rep. James Lankford, R-Okla. to justify the failure of passage of a bill which would have capped federal discretionary spending next year to less than a trillion dollars. Of that failed plan:

That budget plan, authored by the conservative Republican Study Committee Chairman Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, called for replacing federal support of Medicaid with block grants to the states in an effort to curb runaway spending on that program.

Too much power to the states. But aren’t they supposed to have that power anyway? I suppose fiscal sinkholes like Illinois could be problematic–the money would get strangely siphoned away somehow–but then it would be the state’s responsibility to answer to its citizens, no? And if citizens don’t like it, they can vote with their feet.

Lankford did add:

“I’m going to support the most conservative budget we can get out of here […] I’d love to see more cuts faster.”

You and me both.

The good news: after Jordan’s budget failed–which would have balanced the budget in 5 years compared to Ryan’s 28–Ryan’s passed.

House on Thursday voted to pass a budget blueprint for the next decade that would cut billions of dollars in planned federal spending, reduce taxes and reform Medicare.

The bill, authored by House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan, R-Wis., passed 228-191, over the objection of House Democrats, who said the proposal would cut taxes for the wealthy at the expense of seniors and the poor.

The Ryan budget has virtually no chance of passage in the Democratically held Senate. But putting it on the floor for a vote gave the GOP a chance to showcase its fiscally conservative credentials before upcoming elections that may serve as a referendum on the job they have done upholding their 2010 pledge to reduce the country’s massive debt and the ever expanding size of government.

I’ll take 28 years over nothing.

The effect of a free education?

Yet again, look at Greece:

Greeks attend university and vocational schools at a higher rate than students in Germany, Spain or Switzerland, with 43 percent of college-aged Greeks enrolled in 2007, the most recent year that statistics were available from the Organization of European Cooperation and Development in Paris. Yet only 18 percent graduate, one of the lowest rates in Europe.

Greek students pay no tuition, a fact enshrined in the constitution, so there’s no incentive to leave college, said Alan Ruby, a senior fellow for international education at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia.

Emphasis my own. So many lessons can be distilled from one tiny fact, no?

Students pay no tuition, therefore have no incentive to leave.

Welfare recipients pay no taxes and receive never-ending benefits by sitting on their duffs, therefore have no incentive to find work.

Long-term unemployment collectors receive benefits for not finding a job, therefore have no incentive to find said better job.

I could go on.

As Greece heads off the cliff we’re facing. Is it possible to learn a lesson? Doesn’t look likely, does it, as folks scream for free contraceptives.

 

The Onion or TIME?

Oh. You can’t make ledes like this up. Can you? From what-could’ve-been-The-Onion:

In nature, most seals are black, with relatively few white ones. The Navy’s SEALs have exactly the opposite problem – they’re overwhelmingly white, with hardly any blacks. So they’re trying to do something about it.

Dear God. Let’s screw up yet one more thing and enforce affirmative action quotas within a specific volunteer branch of an all-volunteer force. So now the Navy will spend more money we don’t have hiring a contractor to appeal to specific minority groups nationwide in an effort to bolster the number of minority SEALs.

I’m near speechless. Read the rest.

“His name is Jill, and she’s three.”

Once again, “genderlessness” is as much of a construct as gender, and through the imposition of their own ideal, liberals have opened Pandora’s box.

Repeat after me: gender is not a construct. 

Via Nancy French at NRO, another experiment in genderlessness from an exchange at the park with another mother:

“I’m going to raise her as gender-neutrally as possible and let him decide which gender she prefers at the age of eight.”  (Oh, eight . . . that’s when my son dug up our yard one square foot at a time, because he was convinced he’d find buried treasure.)

Does this include deciding which restroom to use, or will all public bathrooms be unisex by that time? This trendy upstate New Yorkers joins the genderless preschool in Sweden and the parents of baby Storm who force children into something inherently unnatural.

My three-year-old plays with dolls, yes. Dirt, cars and blocks, too. I consider it a bonus that she knows she wants to be a mommy, not a daddy, and that daddys don’t have babies because “their numnums don’t work” (i.e. dads can’t nurse babies).  See how easy this is? Genderbending into androgyny won’t solve any problems for the less than one percent. But it creates myriad problems for everyone.

French writes:

Why worry about the deviant sexual philosophies of liberals in New York and Sweden? Because it’s also coming to a neighborhood near you. This Good Morning America segment, for example, about an Ohio boy named Jack, who preferred to be called Jackie:

When Jackie was just ten years old, she went to her mom, crying. “I’m a girl and I can’t do this anymore,” Jackie said. Without hesitation, Jennifer said, “It’s gonna be okay.” There was no judgment or disappointment. Jackie’s family abandoned the pronoun “he.” At first, they only let her wear girls clothing at home, but eventually allowed her to live as a girl full-time, at school and elsewhere. When asked, Jackie’s father John says he has two daughters.

The Huffington Post lauds the parents’ decision in its article about the child, which begins, “Turns out there are parents in the news who do the right thing.” In fact, only his grandfather showed concern about allowing the boy to indulge in his feminine side. “I can not accept that a nine- or ten-year-old can make decisions for himself that will be life lasting,” he told GMA.

He’s right, but frowned upon by being oh-so antiquated in his thinking. I can’t help but think of the young man whose parents were convinced by doctors to raise him as a girl after a botched circumcision. He struggled his entire life. They told him. He struggled more. He committed suicide. Allowing a child to freely flow in a no-man’s-land of genderlessness isolates rather than liberates. 

As I combed Borders Tuesday for any remaining children’s books, I noted the only one left in multiples: My Princess Boy. I was relieved. 

H/t: Pundette.

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