A newly-popular rapper has some less-than-helpful comments about the US in his past. That shouldn't be that much of a surprise, since everyone from the Dixie Chicks on down were dissing the superpower side of the US in the mid-00s. Rappers are generally critters of the left, and when you throw in the semi-colonial relationship that the US has with South Korea, thus making the US an easy authority figure to rage against for Korean lefties, one could see where the path of least resistance for our young Psycho would be to dis Uncle Sam.
You expected him to do Lee Greenwood? It still doesn't make it right, but it at least makes it explainable. To top it off, Psy is back-peddling so well, the Lions might want to sign him to the practice squad.
___________
We've got some modest right-to-work legislation pending in Lansing. It doesn't go as far as the Wisconsin reforms that stripped public-sector workers from the right to bargain on wages; this just gives folks the right not to belong to a union and still work at a union-represented workplace. So, if Eileen gets hired in as a full-time paraeducator and is part of a workforce that is AFT-represented, she could opt not to pay dues and not be a part of the union.
That does create some free-riders who get the benefits of the strength-in-numbers effect of a union, but it also keeps unions from having a captive audience that has to make de-facto donations to the Democratic Party as part of their job; they can ask for the part of their dues that is political in nature back as part of current law, but there is a lot of comingling of union and political activity that would still be not refundable.
This would end the closed-shop, where you have to be a union member to work at a unionized facility. That hits the unions in their pocketbook, but is only un-democratic if you think that a majority should get to be able to browbeat a minority into going along and make them give money to questionable causes if a majority at work think its a good idea.
_________
Here's an interesting story out of Bay City (my mom's home town); they are looking to trim their fire department and cross-train some policemen as backup fire-fighters. That makes some intuitive sense, creating something of a generic first-responder who can do both police and fire functions, but it surely won't make the fireman's union happy.
If done sloppily, you can have an under-trained responce team for fires which could cost lives; if done well, you can have your combo-responders doing police functions until extra firemen are needed, rather than playing fetch with the Dalmatian mascot between runs.
_________
California's Prop 8 is heading to the Supreme Court, along with a companion case which questions DOMA and asks for a same-sex couple to be treated as such by the IRS, who has to treat them as single per DOMA. The latter creates some interesting headaches, where state law can treated them as married but the IRS needs to treat them as single; it creates a mess during tax time for such folks.
The Prop 8 case has some interesting implications for things outside of same-sex marriage; the district judge questioned the use of tradition as a valid reason for banning same-sex marriage, calling religious arguments irrational. If that part of the case is upheld, it creates an open season for a whole host of other laws that have some traditional roots.
Comments