Following are excerpts from the above-mentioned account:

“Ms. Cui is contributing to China’s tightest labor market in years, putting upward pressure on wages that already are rising in the double digits annually.”

“The average monthly income for migrant workers rose 12.1% from a year earlier.”

“Creating jobs in hair salons and insurance companies, instead of in steel mills and soccer-ball factories, helps fuel growth in the world’s second-largest economy.”

“When the bra maker set up a factory in southeastern China’s Jiangxi province more than a decade ago, hundreds of people lined up outside looking for work. Today, the manufacturer for Wonderbra and Elle Macpherson Intimates struggles to find enough workers to operate its production lines at full capacity.”

“For years Top Form competed for labor with factories moving inland to take advantage of lower costs.”

“Supremacist Terror Rising, Islamic Extremism on the Decline”
- Huffington Post, April 9, 2013, by SpearIt, assistant professor at St. Louis University School of Law

It ran just six days before the April 15 Boston Marathon terrorist attacks, carried out by two Islamic Extremists. Not only does the article downplay the threat by Islamic extremism, but it based its white supremacist thesis on a Texas murder case in which supremacist allegations were pure speculation. Sure enough, the culprits were a former justice of the peace and his wife, who held a grudge against the victim.

Another candidate is:

“New Study Shows 3 Year Decline In Muslim-American Terrorist Attacks”

- Carbonated.tv, March 8, 2013, by Owen

May have to revisit that one as well.

According to a WSJ article, rising levels of lead in the environment from the 1950s through 1970s, in large part due to leaded gasoline, was correlated with rising crime 20 years later. This is because toddlers, who often put their fingers in their mouths, ingested dirt contaminated by air pollution. By the time they were in their late teens and early twenties – the age when violence tends to peak – crime had risen.

Then in the 1970s came the prohibition of leaded gasoline. The article states, “As lead in the environment fell in the ’70s and ’80s—thanks in large part to the regulation of gasoline—violence fell correspondingly. No other single factor can account for both the inexplicable rise in violence in the U.S. until 1993 and the precipitous drop since then.”

It would be interesting to find out if the scientists and policymakers back then knew of the correlation between lead and crime. Probably not. Little did they know of the unintended positive effects of their actions.

And that’s why in the majority of countries of the world, like in Venezuela  – where the last opposition television station is finally throwing in the towel after tremendous harassment from the government – Fox News would be shut down in a heartbeat by the powers that be who don’t like hearing constructive criticism. Fortunately we in this country have freedom of the press.

It and other right-leaning news outlets run stories that left-leaning news outlets would never run because those stories may be critical of or embarrassing to the left. That’s galling to the left, which is why the invective against Fox News is so intense.

Certainly, as in all news outlets, one could find areas of legitimate criticism, such as lack of coverage of a certain something, biased coverage of something, or what not. But the broad-based name-calling and efforts to try to pass it off as a “faux” news or “propaganda” organization is rampant. To the left, such “propaganda” is simply legitimate news that they would rather not hear.

I got into a Facebook back-and-forth on this topic. After expressing my disapproval of a Facebook friend (whose identity has been withheld to protect the innocent) “liking” a foul-mouthed, hate-filled Jim Carrey press release directed against Fox News, he acknowledged my point and “unliked” the press release, but then went off into a tirade against Fox News, calling it “faux” news, a propaganda outfit, and – this was a new one on me – even a cult.

I asked him to jump to Foxnews.com and tell me now the dozens stories posted on its website aren’t legitimate news. (True, even I would take issue with some of its gossip/celebrity coverage as being legitimate news, but that certainly isn’t part of the left’s gripe with it.)

The only thing he offered up was a story on the big controversy surrounding Google’s decision to highlight in its logo the leftist labor leader Cesar Chavez on Easter Sunday. I pointed out to him that that wasn’t faux news or propaganda, but rather legitimate news. When Google, which usually dresses up its logo with a theme relating to the particular big holiday, instead highlights something totally unrelated to that holiday, then that’s big news. It didn’t even show an Easter bunny.

My Facebook friend didn’t provide a counter-argument. Conclusion? That the Google story, and the dozens of other stories (except perhaps some of the gossip coverage) were not propaganda, not faux, not a cult, but legitimate news.

This time, however, there’s a key difference: North Korea has a new leader. He’s young and inexperienced, and probably hotheaded and cocky, without the learning that comes with years of governing. And there’s probably no elder around to give him wise counsel, because in North Korea all power is in the single leader. It is presumed by North Koreans that he is all-knowing, and there’s likely no one whose rank and status are close enough to his to be in a position to give him that counseling. Perhaps if a cooler head tried that, he’d be purged or shot.

Now we, and especially South Korea, should start to worry. North Korea announced that it’s tearing up the armistice between it and South Korea. It’s done that before, but not with a brand new inexperienced leader. Last Saturday it announced it had formally entered a “state of war” with South Korea, and that and “all matters between the two Koreas will be handled according to wartime protocol.”

That was talk, but now there’s action. There are reports of a big jump in activity at North Korean missile sites.

This is serious. A wrong move by either side could turn into a hot war. The way Kim Jong Un has been acting, that even may be what he wants. After all, a long-held goal of the North is reunification with the South. Under Communist rule.

Given that there’s probably no one within the North Korean government with the rank or stature to counsel Kim Jong Un with the right advice, China needs to send emissaries there to do so. And/or Russia. And if the Obama administration isn’t already urging China and Russia to use their clout with the North Korean leader to help defuse this situation, then it most certainly should start doing so.

Saturday Night Live recently featured a skit that mocked Jesus, depicting Jesus slaying with a sword Roman soldiers. “He’s risen from the dead,” said the narrator, “and he’s preaching anything but forgiveness.” Apparently it caused enough of a hoopla to prompt Sears and JC Penney to pull their advertising from the show.

In covering remarks by President Obama, NPR reporter Ari Shapiro commented, “The American people agree with the president’s solution to the problem, combining spending cuts with tax revenues. Even a majority of Republican voters support that approach.”

That statement is suspect. It appears to be based on old polls taken prior to the Jan. 1 tax hike. I did a Google search for polls taken within the last month regarding support for further tax increases, and came up dry.

Moreover, you’ve probably noticed that any commentary that NPR adds to news stories, such as in this instance, is leftward biased. They want to try to make the listener think that the tax increases are right because that’s what “the American people” supposedly want.

Prior to conducting open heart surgery, does a heart surgeon take a poll to find out what the American people think is the best way to conduct the operation? Prior to building a bridge, does a bridge engineer take a poll to find out what the American people think is the best method to construct it? Prior to designing a new piece of software, does a computer programmer take a poll to find out what the American people think is the best software code to use?

So if the American people as a whole aren’t qualified to offer advice on the nitty-gritty of surgery, engineering, or computer programming, what makes NPR think that the American people are qualified to offer advice on the nitty-gritty of economics? Raising taxes is an intensely economic undertaking, with economists going to years of schooling in order to best analyze what effects raising taxes will have on the economy and society.

Moreover, of course a majority of the American people would like to sock it to the rich. Such a thought is emotionally satisfying to most people. Shadenfreude, particularly directed at the rich, is a common human trait. But economic policy should not be based on emotion, especially based on the emotions of a majority of the American people. In other words, NPR’s commentary that it snuck into its news story is not only suspect in terms of its accuracy, but it’s also absurd.

— OFFICIAL ANNOUNCEMENT —

Let it be known that from this day forward, the scribe whose words you are at this moment reading will rechristen himself – drum roll please – “reformist”.

As a former editor who takes the meanings of words seriously and often literally, I’ve always had a problem with the terms liberal and conservative. Yes, I know that even many liberals think liberal is a dirty word, which is why they rechristened themselves the woefully inaccurate term “progressive,” as if imitating the pre-crisis public policies of Greece is “progress.”

But as a former liberal myself (up through around grad school), I never regarded it as a dirty word for the most part, except in the sense of overdoing something like “spend liberally”. It’s also supposed to mean well-rounded and open-minded, although many “liberals” are some of the most closed-minded people I know. It has a positive connotation in the sense of “liberal arts education,” or “classical liberal” – i.e. the Adam Smith sense of free markets and free trade.

“Conservative” isn’t a dirty word except perhaps among lefties. Righties are proud to describe themselves as conservative and use the term all the time.

Even so, conservative – and liberal – mean different things at different times, and in different places. In China and Russia, a conservative is someone who wants to revert to the far-left policies of old, and a liberal is someone who wants to enact free-market reforms. In the United States, by contrast, the situation is reversed.

Conservative can mean keeping things as they are – which is just how it should be for many of our age-old institutions. But for other phenomena, such as decades-old, ossified government programs that are bankrupting the country and that are in serious need of reform, would it not be “conservative” to keep the programs as they are?

There you have some of the problems surrounding the use of the terms “conservative” and “liberal.” Again, as a former editor I take the meanings of words seriously. So a much more accurate description of where I stand politically is “reformist”.

Reform means changing something for the better. And there are lots of programs and institutions in this country that need to undergo such overhauls. (Note that some things erroneously get labeled as “reform” even though they’re change for the worse, like Obamacare.)

So I hereby declare that henceforth I shall describe myself as a reformist. And if you, reader, are of a like-minded persuasion, then you should rechristen yourself reformist as well.

— END OFFICIAL ANNOUNCEMENT —

]]> http://policydynamics.org/2013/02/rise-of-the-reformists/feed/ 1 http://policydynamics.org/2013/02/if-the-nyt-wont-investigate-it-then-someone-has-to/ http://policydynamics.org/2013/02/if-the-nyt-wont-investigate-it-then-someone-has-to/#comments Sun, 17 Feb 2013 19:16:47 +0000 PolicyDynamics http://policydynamics.org/?p=2502 The New York Times is complaining that the inquiry on Democratic Senator Menendez over allegations of soliciting prostitutes in the Dominican Republic “started with a partisan push.” The reformist-leaning (some people call it conservative-leaning) National Legal and Policy Center (NLPC) apparently was first to uncover the alleged hanky-panky. The Times writes that the episode “illustrates the often-hidden role that partisan players have in helping push the major news media to dig into ethical allegations lodged against sitting members of Congress.”

The tone is the article suggests that exposing wrongdoing of lefties by groups funded by righties is scandalous in and of itself. Of course, oftentimes the only way wrongdoing by lefties is ever going to be exposed is through right-leaning investigators. It’s obvious that the New York Times didn’t take the lead in investigating and exposing the story, and there’s a reason for that.

Given that the vast majority of news outlets consist of left-leaning employees, they’re significantly less eager to dig up dirt on their allies in the political world. So if they’re not going to do it, then someone has to. That’s why there are watchdog groups like NLPC.

A recent WSJ article (“Health Law Pinches Colleges”) describes colleges and universities that are cutting back on the hours of their adjunct professors in order to avoid having to provide them with health insurance coverage under Obamacare. The article points to a professor whose hours are being cut, resulting in a salary cut of $2,000. The professor said in response, ”I think it goes against the spirit of the [health-care] law,” Mr. Balla said. “In education, we’re working for the public good, we are public employees at a public institution; we should be the first ones to uphold the law, to set the example.”

That sounds like somebody who was a big supporter of Obamacare. And I bet that person is still a big supporter of Obamacare. He seems upset with his employer for not abiding by the spirit of Obamacare. He probably doesn’t realize that his employer, also probably run by Obamacare supporters (given that it’s a college), just cannot afford to abide by that spirit and has no other choice but to cut his hours. The alternative would be to resort to more drastic measures like laying people off.

I bet lots of Obamacare supporters who’ve been victims of Obamacare are thinking in the back of their mind, “I’m a sacrificial lamb for the public good; there must be a greater good in Obamacare despite being personally negatively affected.”

Little do they realize there are millions of sacrificial lambs all across the nation. So many such lambs mean that Obamacare is not a public good, but a public bad.