Can’t Fix Stupid

Obama is Unhinged

Posted on by Amir

Either President Obama has absolutely no clue how the real world works–and this is possible, as he went from academia to community organizer to politician–or he is trying deliberately to destroy the American health care system.

Fact is, businesses have spent the last three years preparing for the implementation of ObamaCare. That was passed by both houses of Congress, signed into law by the President, and upheld by the Supreme Court.

As a result, businesses have made capital planning decisions around their expected costs due to this law. They have laid off workers. They have cut workers from full-time to part-time. They have dropped coverage for certain workers because the coverage did not satisfy the requirements of ObamaCare. That dropped coverage was part of a business decision that was part of a capital plan that was negotiated with investors.

In addition, insurance companies have already made capital decisions regarding the plans that were dropped, and the addition of new, “compliant” plans. Because each state has its own rules for capital requirements, insurance companies must go to great lengths to ensure that they have the necessary reserves to cover the plans that they provide. They dropped the old plans–and added the new plans–with particular capital structures in mind.

As the old plans were dropped–and new plans added–companies made key changes in business rules, some of which are very complex. Those business rules were carried over into their respective IT systems. Developers for those systems have modified their code, made database changes, and have gone through several layers of testing to make sure the new rules are working.

Therefore, to pass a law–or, setting aside the legalities here, issue an executive order–allowing people to keep their old policies, with less than two months remaining in the year and with businesses having already made decisions with respect to capital and operations, does nothing to materially improve the situation, and in fact will only make things worse.

Fact is, even if we repealed ObamaCare today–permanently, effective immediately–a mother lode of damage has already been done. It will take years to recover from this disaster.

I am not defending the Republicans on this, however, as the Establishment has utterly failed to make a coherent case for free markets, and in fact is arguably in bed with the Democrats in their desire for fascism.

Schwyzer Out at Pasadena City College

Posted on by Amir

Hugo Schwyzer–whom I plastered a few times from here–has been forced to resign his professorship at Pasadena City College. Good riddance.

He was the prototypical male feminist. He was the poster boy for the cause, and was given favorable coverage at prominent feminist blog sites. He even parlayed his born-again feminism into a professorship–of women’s studies.

He claimed that while he was once the bad boy who slept with his students, he had turned away from his evil ways, which included sleeping with a gal–who had been abused–then trying to kill her and himself. He was a family man now: married with children. He used that bully pulpit to engage in man-shaming that would have made Al Mohler blush.

But alas, he was caught in a sexting scandal, and–in the course of events–it turned out that he either (a) resumed sleeping with his students, or (b) never stopped doing so.

Once this came to light, even the liberals at PCC could no longer give him a pass.

Hugo Schwyzer Asked to Resign

Posted on by Amir

Hugo Schwyzer–the male “Women’s Studies” professor known for sleeping with his students, then fashioning himself as a reformed bad boy who embraced feminism before recently imploding–has been asked to resign his professorship or face disciplinary action.

Schwyzer is now admitting that he returned to his philandering ways once again after one of his students–Meagan–posted a blog detailing their relationship. In turn, his employer–Pasadena City College–launched an investigation.

Schwyzer–who once admitted to taking sexual advantage of a woman who had been brutalized, then attempting to kill himself and her–has had quite the fall recently.

Couldn’t happen to a nicer guy.

America’s Dumbest Criminals, Part 197,814

Posted on by Cubbie

Time for the newest entry in our series of utterly stupid wrongdoers!

Setting: A cell phone store near Pueblo, Colorado.

A 60-something man with a felony record sees a younger man talking to the clerk. He apparently decides he’s got an easy score, so he identifies himself as a cop, and asks the man in front of the desk if he’s a drug dealer because he has so many phones. He then demands that the younger man give him the drugs. The younger man asks for his credentials, and the older man demands the drugs again.

That’s when the younger man ID’s himself as a real cop and arrests the older man for impersonating a cop.

 

Academia, Government, and Malinvestment

Posted on by Amir

In the real world, preschools and day care centers are plenteous. The market is one of near-perfect competition, where rates are competitive, competitors are always coming and going, and there isn’t a lot of quality variance: most preschools fundamentally suck, and the “better” ones are often lesser evils. Preschool workers–as a group–do not make a lot of money. If they pull above $10 per hour, it’s a bonanza.

And yet, there are colleges with entire education tracks–early childhood education–designed to prepare students for jobs with such economic limitations.

Making matters worse, we have a government that encourages this. Here’s a real-life example of how this has played out. Names have been changed to protect the guilty.

Let’s say that our federal government has $1 million in grant money available for initiatives in “early childhood education”.

Let’s say we have a university: BSU. The initials “BS” can mean whatever the reader wishes.

BSU decides to compete for the grant, proposing the development of an early childhood education center–i.e. a state licensed “preschool”–that will be staffed with faculty, highly-experienced teachers, and students. This will allow students to gain work experience as they work toward teacher certification, and will allow for a high-quality competitor to traditional day care and preschool centers.

BSU receives the grant, and spends the $1 million to build the complex, hire the director, train staff, and ensure that the facilities comply with state licensing requirements. The workers are supposedly the best of the best: they have a minimum of 5 years of experience, and they are paid $12 per hour.

The center at BSU opens on April 1. Their rates average about $50 per week more than the average preschool in the area.

After a month of being open, the number of children enrolled: ZERO!

So let’s get this straight, folks: We, the taxpayers, have provided $1 million in funding to a college, so they can hire overpaid workers and staff, price their services out of the market, and encourage students to accrue a mountain of debt as they enter a profession that–after 5 years of experience–they will pull down $12 per hour if they get a really good break. Making matters worse, they have NO CHILDREN ENROLLED after being open for a month.

When you consider that this is what college education–with few exceptions (such as the STEM fields)–has devolved into, the reality becomes all the more sobering.

Priceless

Posted on by Amir

from Vox Day:

Now, I realize that many doubt my thesis that most of the desirable tenets of Christian civilization will not survive in post-Christian society, but note that in Diamond, we already have a well-regarded, much-honored academic overtly advocating a return to many pagan, pre-civilized customs. But it never seems to occur to those who eagerly anticipate Western post-Christianity that those raised in a pagan society without Christian customs and strictures will not necessarily retain the civilized customs that are inculcated in the secularist or pagan raised in a Christian society.

It is easy to say, well, we’ll keep the Western strictures against widow-strangling, witch-burning, and academic-raping, we’ll just toss the ones against homosexual-marrying, public fornication, polygamy, and letting children play with loaded guns… wait a minute! The brutal reality is that a society in which most children are “allowed to make their own choices and follow their own interests” is a society where the values, and the resulting societal strictures, will eventually be decided by those semi-feral children and not their overly permissive parents.

What has long been decried by the civilized Christian West as “the cowardly act of animals” – how very raciss and judgmental – may well become the next “new normal”. No one should be so foolish as to believe that behavioral change on a societal level is either predestined or readily controlled by government bureaucracy. It is easier to destroy than create; it is easier to degrade than strengthen. The progressives who proudly proclaim that the youth of today are much more open to “gay marriage” should keep in mind that in the not-too-distant future, those formerly open-minded youths may well find themselves position of the disregarded, close-minded elderly, listening in horror as the progressives of tomorrow proudly proclaim that the youth are much more open to “sexual services on demand”.

Take away the Christian consensus that informs the Western understanding of what is “civilized”–we sure as heck didn’t get it from the Atheists–and you will have to replace it with something.

Vox did leave out an angle: those youth–proudly extolled by today’s academics for their “open-mindedness” on a variety of issues from gay “marriage” to in utero infanticideabortion–will be the same progressives who fill the death panels that will green-light the “right to die” of these academics when they become too much of a burden on society.

Former Pastor Jack Schaap Gets 12 Years in Sex Case

Posted on by Amir

Didn’t hear about this until a commenter at Boundless mentioned it.

According to letters released by federal prosecutors last week as part of the government’s sentencing memorandum, Schaap wrote to the teen that his sexual relationship with her was “exactly what Christ desires for us. He wants to marry us + become eternal lovers!”