In spite of Microsoft malware, I did find a few links worth sharing...
Christmas
If party plans are getting to you, Sherry Marr understands.
Economy, The
Do your members of Congress deserve a pay raise? The position of this web site is no, across the board: All Congressmen are already paid enough to live on, and none of them should ask for a raise until inflation has been reversed to the degree that wages and prices are where they were in 1825. (Things that were invented in the last 200 years are luxuries, so sellers might ask as much for new ones as they did when the inventions were new, and buyers could bring prices down.) Student labor might pay less than a dollar a day; then again, a week's groceries might cost less than a dollar per person. This would help the very young understand that stable wages and prices serve them better than raising the minimum hourly wage and watching all the prices jump up, so that, a year after a raise in the minimum hourly wage, minimum wage workers can afford less than they could before.
In 1825 Congressmen were still earning six dollars a day, which has been estimated to be the equivalent of $160 per day in inflated money, and if mine helped shrink wages and prices back to where they started I'd gladly vote him a raise as high as $6.50. This would be a merit raise, which, being awarded to one or two individuals at a time, does not damage the economy and make everyone poorer in the end, the way raising the wage standard always does.
Meanwhile, turning down pay raises is the most patriotic and public-spirited thing a Congressman can do, and is recommended to any Congressman who wants another term.
Music
At Berea College we practiced Spanish grammar by playing those childish substitution games where kids practice the rules for putting different words into sentences. Each student picked something person liked, and for the rest of the term we linked that student's name with what person liked in sentences. "Joe would have liked to have been eating shrimp." "Jane would have liked to have been swimming." And one young man's favorite thing was listening to Mariah Carey. This meme's for him.
At the time she was just another pretty girl with an unusually wide vocal range, but over the years, so many of the other pretty little songbirds have washed up on the rocks...I've forgotten the young man's name by now, but he picked the one with staying power.
Politics
It's the sign on the wall behind the photo. For anyone whose device fails to enlarge the photo enough that they can read the sign: "Libertarians--Diligently Plotting to Take Over the World and Leave You Alone."
Google traces the image to somebody called SaintChristian7 at a site called Memedroid. I saw it in a belated addition to the latest post at the Mirror, from a Disqussant called Grumpy Rabbit.
Road, Rules of the
Another vintage link from Blogspot...I think I can make his first point clearer. Roads were invented for everybody. Motor vehicle registration and licensing came later. Those fees don't give the person the right to use the road; they give the person the right to put the vehicle on the road. Only motor vehicles need to be registered and licensed because only motor vehicles (incorrectly operated) kill human beings daily. It's the pedestrians', bicyclists', and horses' road. They let motorists use it if the motorists behave nicely.
I seriously think we need laws providing that after an incident of reckless or aggressive driving, any road should be closed to motor traffic for a year unless the driver self-reports and pays for all damages. Let other motorists go after the offending driver.
No comments:
Post a Comment