Same-sex marriage got a gentle nudge from the Supreme Court in the recent ruling on the Defense of Marriage Act. But, as much as it seems that it’ll be a state-by-state issue, a court ruling in late July suggests that same-sex marriage anywhere may mean same-sex marriage everywhere. A federal judge in Ohio ordered state officials to recognize the marriage of two men who were married in Maryland, for the purposes of listing on the death certificate of one that he was married to the other.

Yeah, it’s just a blank on a form being filled in, but if it stands, it would be a legal precedent that could easily be built upon. So here’s the question for same-sex marriage proponents. Do you really believe this should be decided by each state, or should it be handed down from the federal government? If the former, you should be against this judge’s action. If the latter, you should be letting us all know. My guess is that if people knew that proponents are looking to force this on all states, there would be quite the backlash. And so, in the meantime, it’s not spoken of much in polite company. After all, if you think the federal government shouldn’t define marriage via DOMA, then it shouldn’t define marriage, period.

And the people of Ohio would get to choose how to deal with this situation themselves.

I’ve written before about how Detroit had become the victim of big-spending, blue-state politics. The idea that government must do everything for everyone has been shown to be bankrupting. So many liberals will say, when conservatives want to cut this or that government program, that those conservatives don’t care, or even hate, those people who are served by that program. That is to say, if the government doesn’t do it, no one will, certainly not the private sector.

A private, for-profit business, the Threat Management Center, or TMC, has sprouted up in Detroit to pick up where the incompetent city government has left off. Dale Brown started TMC in 1995, initially to aid law enforcement. But after getting no interest from the cops, Brown just kept doing what he did best; helping prevent crime, rather than taking notes long after the bad guys got away. He’s paid, not by collecting fines like the city does, but by his customers. And if he doesn’t do the job, he doesn’t get paid and goes out of business, unlike a government that, with no competition, doesn’t care if they perform well or not. And thanks to TMC’s efficiency and profitability, they are also able to provide free or incredibly low-cost services to the poor as well.

Here’s an article about TMC, and another private enterprise; the Detroit Bus Company. The headline is, “This is What Budget Cuts Have Done to Detroit … And It’s Freaking Awesome”. It proves that private enterprise can handle essential services far better than the government can. Not that die-hard liberals will ever admit to it, in spite of the evidence. I really suggest you stop by the show notes and give it a read.

The profit motive works. For all of us.

The IRS will be one of the agencies collecting data for ObamaCare. Odd, then, that the National Treasury Employees Union, whose members include most of those IRS workers, is encouraging them to write their Congressman and protest being put into those very exchanges that ObamaCare proponents consider so wonderful.

Congressman David Camp has introduced legislation to force all federal employees out of the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program and into the exchanges. Camp actually thinks that ObamaCare should be repealed, but if what’s good for the goose is good for the gander, why should government employees be exempt from this big government program? After all, the whole point is to get more people to participate so that (so the theory goes) insurance costs will be lower for those who need subsidies, right? The fewer the participants, the higher the cost for everyone, right?

And unions were the biggest backers of this plan. So, you have to wonder why this union is trying to get out of this. Oh, and DC legislators and their staff; they’ll be exempt, too. Subsidizing for thee, but not for me, so the saying goes. Or ought to.

G’day

1. Now there’s an amusing analogy.
2. The scandalanche.
3. Christianity.
4. And the same as above, just very early.
5. Stimulus not stimming.
6. OK, then, but even if statistically sound, it won’t change anyone’s positions today.
7. Where you go when you don’t have a sound argument.
8. Or one of these.
9. If one was racist, oddly enough … I’d think that the Democrat’s pet race/economic policies would be exactly what I’d support, e.g., aff action, pc speech suppression, and so on.
10. Ages of famous men in a remarkable time.

Busy busy.

1. A book is noted.
2. Public works art is often regrettable.  Or should that be normally?
3. “Marriage” !?? … child abuse by any other name is … still.
4. Doing the damning with faint praise to the max.
5. Education and Poverty.
6. Consequences of raising minimum productivity bounds.
7. 5 years of blogging … gets results.
8. Ah, memories of high school reading habits.
9. Well, to be honest a lot of the knowledge brought West reportedly from Islam came from sacking Constantinople.
10. Feeding the wrong wolf.

So … do you like puns?

Good morning.

1. Fiction and the White House.
2. Obamacare bungling continues apace.

And .. I deleted too many recent links so .. from earlier this week ..

1. About time, literally.
2. Drink, drank, drunk.
3. Brings to mind the first paragraph of Anna Karenina, eh?
4. Given not taken.
5. #1 daughter and my, ahem #1 (and only) wife, are seeing this tonight. I wish I could be there.
6. Spam as policy?

Good morning.

1. Dumb? Well, if “not remembering to exhaustively look up every term you use casually is dumb” (or using twitter at all), then yes.
2. Well, correlation is not causation … but on the other hand the Cemocrat impulse to note (or overlook) the correlation and infer the opposite as cause  is even more wrong.
3. A consequence of being Jewish on marriage, i.e., view essentially as a contract.
4. Onion-ish, except it’s not fiction.
5. Some suggestions for big Pharma. Of course, the policy take away is that one good way to remove the high level of caution would to remove some of the legal risks.
6. On secular celibacy (HT)
7. Open systems, of a sort, and why light security interfaces on your pacemaker remain a really horrible idea.

Good, well, day.

1. Help or harm?
   
2. The other third who are ag’in it are college administrators and Democratic politicians, and journalists. Recall yesterday’s equal protection quotes from Mr Jackson.
3. Perhaps confusing anesthesia with the agents blocking the formation of long term memory.
4. The carbon-is-bad crowd is surely very excited about developments like this. If they aren’t they are very confused (or hypocrites).
5. The important funding for healthcare is of course, the perks for the big wigs. Some things never change.
6. Given that the “Hebrew OT” used in many modern translations was collected in the 9th century AD and the Greek OT (Septuagint) was tranlated in the 3rd century BC by 70 (many?) rabbis … the calls of which was more “genuine” get somewhat confused.
7. Politicians lie. Constantly.
8. Yikes.
9. A really strong argument against the wisdom of ACA/Obamacare. (see #5 above and perks).

August continues, in a few weeks #1 daughter will give college the old college try.

1. Teleos and man.
2. Sodding Sod?
3. Obamacare consequences.
4. In a post on implicit bias … not noticing other implicit biases, like that women in philosophy (and in academia in general) are likely more common than conservatives.
5. Oh. Yech. Yech, yech, blech. Don’t even think of the word smell when you read that.
6. In the news.
7. Obama’s government, standing firm against equal protection, wasn’t always that way though.
8. Advice for the week.
9. An application of the above.
10. Of God and man.
11. It’s not working, so keep it up, eh?

Good day … in pairs.

1. Questioning premises, public education (here too). Here’s a hypothesis, public support for education should be weighted by measurable talents demonstrated by the child.
2. There’s a good idea and a reading suggestion.
3. A thought to gnaw upon … and some more to get grumpy ’bout.
4. Noble savage … not exactly … and a better microscope.
5. Various thoughts … and (nothing).
6. I don’t think that’s true … and sharing life with introverts.
7. More than meta-data … and (nothing).
8. The mid-East and … pipelines.
9. Well, yes, but we are also basically evil at heart (remember the “line between” quote) … and prosecution for what?
10. Memories of the past in these waning Weiner days (recall Ms L is in her 40s now) … and apparently order matters in the acquisition of dogs and kids.

OK then. Enjoy

Woops.

1. Feminism ala Rome.
2. Not a quiet ride.
3. How the Vickie’s live (differently).
4. On altruism.
5. Cinema. And … I wonder if it’s less a “strength” vs timescale thing here, that temptations work on a fast timescale, while the other two take  commensurate (slower) times to work.
6. Zuperman.
7. Scandal and the treasury.
8. Looks like that’s in the “doesn’t work yet” category.
9. Whence went shame?
10. I’m missing the reason why that’s awful.
11. Sort of binary sandpiles.
12. Detroit … although how many of the 25 apply just as well to other urban centers?
13. Advice for your booklist inbox.
14. One left wing radical unashamed of her bigotry.
15. So do you think he’s guilty or just a dupe?

[This is the script from the latest episode of my podcast, "Consider This!"]

Detroit, Michigan, formerly the auto-making capital of the US, if not the world, filed for chapter 9 bankruptcy protection on July 18^th, becoming the current capital of big cities going under in the US. What brought Detroit under water is not really debatable; declining income and spending beyond its means. What is being debated are the causes of the two.

On the spending side, I think it’s no coincidence that the city has had essentially one party rule for the past 51 years. No surprise that the party in question is the Democratic Party. Detroit’s current budget deficit is believed to be more than $380 million, and its long-term debt could be as much as $20 billion. Rather than cutting spending, Detroit ignored the common sense lesson of living within your means, embrace the Paul Krugman idea that austerity kills, and died anyway, spending like there was no tomorrow. Well, there is a tomorrow, and it’s here.

When tax and spend had to be curtailed, because of a shrinking tax base, then borrow and spend kicked in. I suppose someone like Krugman would say they didn’t borrow enough. When that wasn’t enough, President Obama said that Detroit wouldn’t go bankrupt on his watch, and he tossed boatloads of money at the union-controlled, Democrat-voting auto industry, and pronounced it, merely on the reasoning that he had written a check, that Detroit was coming back. Yeah, no so much.

Now, even the Obama administration won’t touch them. They’ve stood up for their big spending principles, in DC and in Detroit, and reality has hit them upside the head with the mother of all clue-bats, as in “get a clue”. It doesn’t matter what your intentions are. Consistently spending more – far more – than you have will one day come home to roost. And everyone – both those from whom the money was taken, and to whom the money was given – will suffer. And it will affect the poor disproportionately because the rich have the means to escape.

And they did escape, which brings us to the income side of the equation. The riots of 1967 chased citizens and businesses alike out of the city, which only accelerated and existing trend, such that in the past 60 years, it lost 60% of its residents. But the riots weren’t the only reason. With corruption, over-promising and the requisite overspending, those that could read the handwriting on the wall did what they had to do. If you can’t change the government, change your location, and they did.

And if you’re inclined to lay the blame at the feet of greedy corporations that outsource jobs, Walter Russell Mead has some information that tends to suggest a group as, or more, culpable. The city’s $11 billion in unsecured debt includes $6 billion in health and other retirement benefits and $3 billion in retiree pensions for its 20,000 city pensioners. That’s “billion”, with a “B”. But now, these folks, whose union representatives negotiated this package, and now very likely going to get less than 10 percent of that. Like I said, everyone gets hurt, ultimately, with these kinds of policies. Those who got their benefits and hit the road are not unlike the folks who start a pyramid scheme. They cash in early and often, while those who get in later either get very little return, or lose out. The pyramid in Detroit has played itself out.

Walter Russell Mead, again, has a relevant warning for those in other cities who still think such policies are a good idea, because of their good intentions.

Progressive politicians, wonks, and activists can only blame big corporations and other liberal bogeymen for so long. The truth is that corrupt machine politics in a one-party system devoted to the blue social model wrecked an entire city and thousands of lives beyond repair. The sooner blues come to terms with this reality, the greater chance other cities will have of avoiding Detroit’s fate.

I would add that the sooner DC comes to terms with this, the better, for the same reason. And, working our way back in the political process, the sooner the voters of this nation come to terms with this, the better off we will all be. It may not sound, to the untrained ear, to be very caring, or fair, or socially just. But Detroit has a 47% illiteracy rate. 60% of its children are living in poverty. Its crime rate is 5 times the national average. The murder rate is 11 times higher than New York City. Is it caring, or fair, or socially just, to pursue policies that led to that?

If you continue to vote for those policies, then what visited Detroit will be visiting you soon enough. It may already be in the process of happening. Detroit just got there first. Who’s next?

Good, well, evening

1. Well, students of politics (not theology), might point out that is obvious, central and government power has been steadily on the rise again since, well, Rome fell (further reading: Bertrand de Jouvenel “On Power“, which is a good book if you prefer the sort that encourages you to stop every page or so and ponder what you’ve just read).
2. It is, admittedly, easier to see other’s blind spots than your own.
3. Dead man walking perhaps not so dead.
4. Storage hints.
5. Interesting, but translate that to the beltway and BS …. yikes.
6. Talking virtue again.
7. Not a neo-nazi skinhead.
8. Lessons from the liberal press on how not to retract.
9. When putting a blog post “unclear on the concept” normally one should try to refer to something other than yourself. To whit “more likely” has very little to the running of one experiment. When I roll a die, I am more likely to roll a number of spots greater than 2 than I am a number less than or equal to two. That I did roll a die and get a one (and therefore have 100% chance I did roll a 1 is not relevant to the prior probability estimate). Mr Schilling, it is alas, you who are unclear on the concept.
10. Evil witches.

Good … well, whatever. Links?

1. A career suggested.
2. Or … addicts don’t stop being addicted after public exposure . Surprise, well, not exactly.
3. This brings to mind the science fiction-like novel I’be been plugging, in its consderation of hate. The novel Vita Nostra ultimately connects note hate but the conjunction of love and fear in the context of education.
4. Irony in recent Obamacare moves, in which Mr Obama’s very likely Constitutional unilateral decision to not enforce a law is ratified by the House and a veto is threatened.
5. Small mammal with impressive spine strength noted.
6. Arrest? That seems extreme if was an emergency thing or in a very rural area.
7. Pacifism and cinema.
8. Grist for the “if he was a black man shooting a white one (hispanic?)” things would have turned out differently mill.
9. He blinded me with science.
10. Things to appall JSM.
11. Ya think there’s some backstory/history going on behind there?
12. Headline stating the obvious.
13. Oh, he’s likely a racist, just not in the expected way.

Good morning

1. Ice down under.
2. Is this the “See I’m such a blatteroon that I should have been killed prior to birth” argument for abortion?
3. Whence the Zimmerman/Martin outrage?
4. One more on the above trial.
5. And Mr Zimmerman back in the news.
6. Keeping it classy in Ohio, or not.
7. Ditto.
8. Chicago politics norms.
9. It’s (h) a Lucy Nation (that’s supposed to be a pun).
10. And … its a blech response.
11. The Apostles’ Creed for the modern liberal.
12. Cinema.
13. Playing games with the high speed camera.
14. Advertising and the sublime.
15. Reviewing drone studies.