The Completely Predictable Rise in Sexual Assaults in the Military

There have always been a lot of questions about the role of women in the military, and how close to the front lines they should be. One of the issues was the increased risk of sexual assault. A typical liberal response went as follows:

Then there’s the potential for sexual assault, humiliation and torture. Right, because 1) male captives are immune to such threats, and 2) women don’t already face the threat of sexual assault from their fellow soldiers?

So it’s no surprise that reality is once again smacking the libs across their collective faces:

The problem of sexual assault in the military leapt to the forefront in Washington on Tuesday as the Pentagon released a survey estimating that 26,000 people in the armed forces were sexually assaulted last year, up from 19,000 in 2010, and an angry President Obama and Congress demanded action.

This is typical of the liberal mindset: enact a policy while ignoring fundamental issues, then demand more policy to correct those issues when they inevitably arise.

And act self-righteous when you do it.

It’s Hard to Find Good Help These Days

My Dad, who spent 4 years as Launch Control Officer at Minot AFB and 3 years as a Squadron Commander at Grand Forks AFB, must be frowning from Heaven right now:

The Air Force stripped an unprecedented 17 officers of their authority to control — and, if necessary, launch — nuclear missiles after a string of unpublicized failings, including a remarkably dim review of their unit’s launch skills. The group’s deputy commander said it is suffering “rot” within its ranks.
…
The tip-off to trouble was a March inspection of the 91st Missile Wing at Minot Air Force Base, N.D., which earned the equivalent of a “D” grade when tested on its mastery of Minuteman III missile launch operations. In other areas, the officers tested much better, but the group’s overall fitness was deemed so tenuous that senior officers at Minot decided, after probing further, that an immediate crackdown was called for.

I don’t know why these gentlemen were so bad at their jobs, but they’re certainly an embarrassment to the generations of officers before them who were committed to doing their jobs correctly and keeping their country safe.

It’s a War on Married Couples, Not Married Women

I normally like articles from The Weekly Standard, but this one from Ashley E. McGuire was a stinker: The War on (Married) Women. The article concerns the “unfair” tax burden on married women.

Why is it unfair?

Well, because the married tax brackets average the incomes, so that the lead earner pays fewer taxes than they would have as a single person, and the second earner pays more. Apparently this arrangement means that the second earner is being ripped off somehow, despite the fact that the second earner enjoys the benefit of the first earner’s higher salary and lower taxes thereupon.

There is, of course, a very real marriage tax penalty, and it is in dire need of tax reform. But that doesn’t seem to be what she’s describing.

Then she rails on about the costs of nannies and self-employment taxes. Welcome to real life, Ms. McGuire – those real problems, which affect both people in a marriage, have been around ever since women started entering the workforce in significant numbers.

The bottom line is that a marriage is a partnership, with the couple sharing income and expenses. Any unfairness here is not directed toward women specifically, but to the partnership. Trying to turn the need for tax reform into a women’s issue is insulting to that partnership, and will lead to the wrong sort of remedies.

Consumer Savings from Obamacare are Tiny, Fleeting, and Likely to Kill Off Individual Insurance Policies

The LA Times lauds the wondrous consumer benefits of Obamacare:

‘Obamacare’ saves consumers nearly $1.5 billion

Health insurance companies passed $1.5 billion in savings mandated by ‘Obamacare’ on to consumers in 2011, a new analysis shows.
…
The study by the New York-based Commonwealth Fund also suggests that the Affordable Care Act forced insurers to become more efficient by limiting their administrative expenses, a key goal of the 2010 law.
…
The rules “appear to be producing important consumer benefits,” concluded the report’s authors

But not so fast. First of all, you’re talking about $1.5 billion in savings as compared to the $235 billion spent on insurance premiums last year. That’s a savings of 0.6%. So if your employer spent $1000/month on your health insurance last year, you’d have saved $6/month.

Second, those miniscule savings have already been swallowed up since. The article eventually gets around to noting that:

The average cost of an employer-provided family health plan jumped 4% to $15,745 between 2011 and 2012

So as a means of reducing the rate of premium inflation, Obamacare has already been a bust. Further, if you go to the actual report, you find that the area where the greatest savings were realized was individual policies, and that the individual insurance policy industry as a whole took a real beating in 2011. That led the authors of the study to provide this caveat:

On the other hand, further pressure on premium rates might cause some insurers to leave certain market segments, if they cannot maintain adequate profits.

So is Obamacare all that? Not hardly.

A Couple of Photos I Ran Across

Actually I think this one’s a photoshop: the Poseidon Undersea Resorts in Fiji (only $30K/couple for a 1 week stay):

Dubai:

New NHS Strategy: Tell Patients to Suck it Up

As I’ve said many times before, the UK is a pretty reliable canary for the US’s coal mine. They’re the go-to testing ground for our policy, and in this case they’re doing a yeoman’s work in proving just how bad things are getting for the largest and oldest single-payer healthcare system in the world:

The NHS can’t go on like this. Patients today – baby boomers, especially – bother the doctor with minor complaints when their grandparents would have grinned and borne it, and have unrealistic expectations of what the health service can provide. The system is at breaking point. The solution? We are going to have to start paying for some medical services at the point of delivery.

Those “unrealistic expectations” aren’t unrealistic in our country. We have been getting better and better treatment for more and more ailments, and nobody has ever asked us to “grin and bear” any complaint, no matter how minor.

At least so far.

Obamafail: Manufacture Much?

(cross-posted at Innocent Bystanders)

Upon accepting his nomination at the DNC convention last month, the President presented quite a list of specific accomplishments he wanted to achieve. I talked about one a couple of days ago; his promise to double exports by the end of 2014. Not gonna happen, not that he has much to do with it anyhow.

Today I’d like to address a second Obambition: adding 1 million manufacturing jobs by the end of 2016. The President is fond of claiming that he’s created 500,000 manufacturing jobs since January 2010. For example, here’s the chart that Obama for America had in the brochure they sent me yesterday:

You can see that while his claim is strictly true, his clever policy going forward is to simply extend the line from the existing data to 2016. He’s assuming that the rebound rate of job recovery will continue well into what should be a normal growth phase (that doesn’t normally happen).

But there are two additional problems with this chart. The first is that the data they use is slightly (and conveniently) outdated. Here’s the latest from the Bureau of Labor Statistics:

You see that leveling off that started last March? Yeah, for the last 7 months manufacturing jobs have been flatlining. Since the geniuses at Obama for America stopped using data in April and projected thereafter, they haven’t noticed that in the last 6 months we’ve gained 0 manufacturing jobs. Yeah, zero.

So I took the liberty of updating their chart (without the artsy wiggles in the predicted part):

The second problem lies in their cherrypicking of the time period. The job gains they show above look impressive because they’re starting from the lowest point in the data. So let’s look at the big picture for a moment:

Now you can see that Obama’s claim that he’ll get manufacturing jobs up to 13 million by the end his second term means that they still won’t have recovered to where they were at the beginning of the recession. Yes, folks, President Obama is telling us that it will take a total of 8 years to get manufacturing jobs back to Nov 2008 – the month he was originally elected.

Remember – this is his bold new plan to resurrect manufacturing. He proudly trumpeted this completely underwhelming goal to the nation, and it’s a basic part of his platform. And of course, even with its inadequacy, he’s already failing to meet it.

******************************

The manufacturing job sector’s recovery has been pathetic. It has taken us 4 years to recapture 14% of the manufacturing jobs that were lost. President Obama is promising us that it’ll take another 4 years to recapture the next 28%.

And after 8 years of Obamanomics, even if it’s completely successful, we still won’t be halfway to full recovery.

A Man Gots to Know His Limitations

(cross-posted at Innocent Bystanders)

One of the key criticisms of President Obama’s handling of the Benghazi attack was his decision to go to Las Vegas for a campaign event rather than staying back in Washington to handle the crisis. On Sunday David Axelrod defended his boss:

President Obama returned to the campaign trail hours after terrorists attacked the U.S. consulate and a safe house in Benghazi, killing four Americans, because “everything was put in motion that he could put in motion,” Obama campaign senior adviser David Axelrod said Sunday.

Somehow he got a pass on that statement, which I think has two major flaws.

First of all, when you have a major crisis, a leader leads until the crisis is resolved. He doesn’t say, “I’ve done what I can do, so f*ck it.” The measure is not “I checked off my tasks,” it’s “The situation is now under control, and all American personnel are safe.”

And this whole business of, “my attitude on this is that if we find out that there was a big breakdown and somebody didn’t do their job, then they’ll be held responsible,” is ridiculous. If he had stayed in Washington and managed the response, there wouldn’t have been any breakdown or somebody not doing their job. The guy who didn’t do his job is the guy who basically sent out some memos (if he really did) and then headed for the air strip.

What a flawed concept of leadership.

The second problem is that I believe that Axelrod’s statement is probably true. All too true. “…everything was put in motion that he could put in motion.” Yes, I think the President probably did perform to the utmost of his capabilities.

But we really need a leader who isn’t quite so limited. Someone who could put, say, military resources in motion in a timely fashion. Someone who could secure the compound before journalists picked up Ambassador Smith’s diary. Someone who could treat this attack as though it was an organized attack on American soil, and not hijinks from a high-spirited Libyan crowd.

By Axelrod’s admission, that “someone” needs to be someone else.

Words I Never Wanted to Hear Coming from My President’s Mouth

Barack Obama told a supporter in Iowa last night “you’ll love me even more” after you hear the fourth part of his plan.

I Think This Headline is Missing an Adjective…

…like “prepubescent.”

At Abercrombie & Fitch, Sex No Longer Sells

The article is kind of retarded, focusing on the notion that A&F’s marketing isn’t “hot” anymore:

While Abercrombie blames the economy for its woes, brand consultants say it also has failed to change with the times. Today’s teens are underwhelmed by the half-naked models and blaring, dimly lit stores.

So who’s right? Later in the article they say:

Then the economic downturn made it hard for Abercrombie to keep selling $70 jeans when similar styles could be purchased elsewhere for $40. The result: Customers began moving on.

Stupid Binge Drinking Quotes

Binge drinking hysteria has plagued the literature for a couple of decades now, so it’s no surprise that researchers are doing their habitual hand-wringing over this news:

The negative effects of binge drinking are well-known, which makes the findings of new research released today linking binge drinking and reported happiness in college students troubling to many health experts.

The survey of 1,595 undergraduate students revealed binge drinking students report being happier than their non-binge drinking peers.

Naturally this occasion has given several people a chance to say some very stupid things:

“For the price of a six-pack or two of beer, a minority or poorer student can feel as if they have become a member of the Beverly Hills Country Club,” says Dr. Mark Jaffe, a psychiatrist at Cliffside Malibu Drug Detox Program.

Hey – I was a poorer student, and for the price of a six-pack or two of beer I was able to . . . have fun. I didn’t feel like a member of a country club, nor did I feel like I had gained any status. I just ran around having fun.

“Binge drinking may also be a prerequisite for receiving the full benefits of high status group membership,” writes study author Hsu.

…if by “high status group” you mean, “people who are having fun.”

“I find the overall information to be very sad,” says Dr. Edwin Salsitz, chair of the Education and Program Committee of the New York Society of Addiction Medicine. “Binge drinking is dangerous on many different levels, yet these students seem to derive benefits from this behavior.”

Duh. Otherwise they wouldn’t do it. Is the notion that things have pluses and minuses so foreign to these people? Do they truly believe in a such a Manichean world?

This sort of irrational vilification should be replaced by an intelligent discussion of the benefits and dangers of drinking. Only by being realistic can these pundits hope to reach the kids they’re trying to help.

Reminds me of the old Noah Sweat, Jr. quote:

My friends, I had not intended to discuss this controversial subject at this particular time. However, I want you to know that I do not shun controversy. On the contrary, I will take a stand on any issue at any time, regardless of how fraught with controversy it might be. You have asked me how I feel about whiskey. All right, here is how I feel about whiskey:

If when you say whiskey you mean the devil’s brew, the poison scourge, the bloody monster, that defiles innocence, dethrones reason, destroys the home, creates misery and poverty, yea, literally takes the bread from the mouths of little children; if you mean the evil drink that topples the Christian man and woman from the pinnacle of righteous, gracious living into the bottomless pit of degradation, and despair, and shame and helplessness, and hopelessness, then certainly I am against it.

But, if when you say whiskey you mean the oil of conversation, the philosophic wine, the ale that is consumed when good fellows get together, that puts a song in their hearts and laughter on their lips, and the warm glow of contentment in their eyes; if you mean Christmas cheer; if you mean the stimulating drink that puts the spring in the old gentleman’s step on a frosty, crispy morning; if you mean the drink which enables a man to magnify his joy, and his happiness, and to forget, if only for a little while, life’s great tragedies, and heartaches, and sorrows; if you mean that drink, the sale of which pours into our treasuries untold millions of dollars, which are used to provide tender care for our little crippled children, our blind, our deaf, our dumb, our pitiful aged and infirm; to build highways and hospitals and schools, then certainly I am for it.

This is my stand. I will not retreat from it. I will not compromise.

I Liked This G. H. Hardy Quote

I’ve been reading The Man Who Knew Infinity – the story of Srinivas Ramanujan, the famous Indian mathematician who was discovered by G. H. Hardy in 1913. It’s the story that inspired Good Will Hunting, but I find that the book is far better than the Damon/Affleck flick. [I had previously read The Indian Clerk by David Leavitt, but didn't care for the fictionalized treatment he gave Ramanujan's story, nor for the gay embellishments that hijacked the book.]

In any case, The Man Who Knew Infinity contained this Hardy quote:

What we do may be small, but it has a certain character of permanence, and to have produced anything of the slightest permanent interest, whether it be a copy of verses or a geometrical theorem, is to have done something utterly beyond the powers of the vast majority of men.

Sigh. I suppose it’s unlikely that blogging could ever have a “character of permanence.”

Voter ID Laws – How Many People Really Don’t Have Photo IDs?

Anti-ID zealots point to the Brennan Center for Justice of NYU, which sponsored a survey in 2006 to ask people if they had a current photo ID. They’ve been trumpeting the results ever since:

As many as 11 percent of United States citizens – more than 21 million individuals – do not have government-issued photo identification. Eleven percent of the American citizens surveyed responded that they do not have current, unexpired government-issued identification with a photograph, such as a driver’s license or military ID. Using 2000 census calculations of the citizen voting-age population, this translates to more than 21 million American adult citizens nationwide who do not possess valid government photo ID.

But before we get too worried about disenfranchising all those poor ID-less voters, let’s look at the questions they asked:

Post No. 1000!!!

Yes, folks, after 5+ years of cyclically starting and stopping this site, I’ve finally managed to reach the 1000th post. I’ve really enjoyed writing here, as well as at JunkYardBlog, Innocent Bystanders, and Ace of Spades HQ.

This occasion is especially significant, as it also marks the date of the 5000th post at Innocent Bystanders!! Congrats, Michael and Retired Geezer!

So, over the past 5 years, what have been the most popular posts here? I’m glad you asked:

1. Daily Debunking (sort of): The miraculous powers of Preparation H
2. Recovery? Hah! Just Oscillating Unemployment Claims
3. Cold War II: Sino-russian economic ties
4. Obama denies
5. The right to self-defense
6. Car crash hysteria from the Washington Post
7. China’s Secret Nuclear Submarine Base
8. Daily (sort of) Debunking: pronunciation of “primer” and “flaccid”
9. About the Famous Obama Tax Cuts
10. Daily Debunking: Pronunciation of “forte”

There are also a few posts deserving an honorable mention:

1. Paul Anka Transcript: Find out what the guys get and who’s the most important one on the stage!!
2. The Creation Myth: Obama’s 4 Million Jobs & Are we stimulated yet?: These were the first appearances of The Chart, which went viral when I posted it at Innocent Bystanders in May 2009.
3. Q. When is 45 million not 45 million?: This post addressed the inflated and misinterpreted statistics for health insurance. When I reposted it at JunkYardBlog, it got 24,000 hits in one day. I think that’s a personal record – not even The Chart managed to pull in that many hits.

When I started this blog I had unrealistically high hopes that it would be a fact-centered place where reason and right would prevail. As a new blogger with that lofty goal, I was very fascist in the early years, booting people off when they didn’t meet my standards for commenting. I’ve mellowed and gotten a little wiser, I hope, so that now I don’t mind so much if people make illogical or unsupported arguments.

Well, at least I don’t boot them off so quickly.

Newt Gingrich and the “Schoolchildren as Janitors” Brouhaha

I’m a month late on this one, but I only recently heard about Newt Gingrich’s “using schoolchildren as janitors” kerfuffle. Apparently Newt said:

“You say to somebody, you shouldn’t go to work before you’re what, 14, 16 years of age, fine,” Mr. Gingrich said. “You’re totally poor. You’re in a school that is failing with a teacher that is failing. I’ve tried for years to have a very simple model. Most of these schools ought to get rid of the unionized janitors, have one master janitor and pay local students to take care of the school. The kids would actually do work, they would have cash, they would have pride in the schools, they’d begin the process of rising.”

He’s repeated this idea several times on the campaign trail, causing quite a bit of hyperventilation at The Atlantic, where they connipted:

This suggestion is, on its face, insane. It sounds like a bad Stephen Colbert joke. But if you stop and consider its merits for a minute or two…well no, it’s still quite insane. And if you spend an evening researching the nitty gritty of what public school custodians actually do for a living, it turns out to be downright cruel.
…
So what do janitors actually do? It’s a lot more than mopping. To get a sense, look over this job description for a New York City public school custodial engineer–a “master janitor,” as Gingrich would put it. He and his team of cleaners and handymen are responsible for cleaning, yes. That part involves hazardous chemicals like hydrochloric acid. They also operate the school’s heating system, do electrical repairs, maintain the school grounds, take care of the HVAC equipment, and handle basic plumbing fixes, among other assorted jobs. I ask: What parent wants a nine-year-old, or even a thirteen-year-old, toying with the HVAC in her school?

He goes on to claim that Newt’s flippant disregard for the real nature of custodial work reflected “a deep disrespect for and ignorance of American work.”

Enter FactCheck. But a few weeks later FactCheck, in their haste to make Newt look foolish, ended up making The Atlantic’s Jordan Weissman look like a complete idiot. FactCheck, took issue with Newt’s concurrent claim that, “… New York City janitors, the most expensive janitors in New York are paid more than the highest paid teachers. The entry-level janitor is paid twice as much as an entry-level teacher. It’s all because of the union.”

FactCheck debunks this claim by pointing out that Gingrich is mixing up entry-level cleaners, who make a little less than entry-level teachers ($37.7K vs $45.5K), with custodial engineers, who make almost twice as much ($81K):

There are several classifications of custodial workers, but the one that probably most closely resembles a janitor is a “cleaner,” said Robert Troeller, president and business manager of Local 891 of the International Union of Operating Engineers in Brooklyn, N.Y. These are the folks who dust, mop and sweep, among other things. Cleaners get paid $18.13 an hour.

So Newt was confused, conflating “custodial engineer” with “janitor.” He might be forgiven, since “custodial engineer” is often used as an inflated or humorous description of a janitorial position (thanks, PC language!).

But how about The Atlantic? Well, as I said above, Weissman ends up looking look a moron. He went off on his rant about how demanding and skilled the requirements for a New York Custodial Engineer were, but Newt was obviously talking about a cleaning position. Everything Weissman said was completely irrelevant, up to and including his claim that Newt was disrespectful of American work. Instead, it looks like it is Weissman who is completely out of touch with labor.

Look, I was a janitor in high school and my first summer in college, and my brother eventually inherited my high school job from me. My dad was also a janitor in high school, and both he and I washed dishes in college (and my brother washed dishes in high school). These jobs were great ways to make some money, take on some responsibility, and get introduced to the working world. It also taught us that no one is “too good” for any sort of job.

The Big Picture. Let’s look at Newt’s major points:

1. Cleaners are overpaid w/respect to teachers: Yup, even though they have no degree or skills, they are making more than 80% of what teachers make. Pity the poor teacher who spends 4 years in college and acquires $100K in debt, only to find that cleaners have been earning money for 4 years and have no debt nor any obligation to earn a masters.
2. The unions are responsible for these pay scales: Duh.
3. Kids could do cleaning jobs: Again, duh. I used to do these jobs in high school (see below).
4. Kids could benefit from earning money: Is there any doubt?
5. Giving kids jobs puts them on the track for success: I believe that’s true, though it’s a hard thing to prove. I’m pretty sure that it can’t hurt.

I would also posit that Newt’s points are part of a bigger trend in the job market, which has replaced high school and college labor with cheap immigrant labor and unionized careerists. College kids don’t work in the cafeteria or on the janitorial staff anymore, and they don’t come home in the summer to work construction or landscaping jobs like they used to. High school kids have been pushed out of fast food jobs, and middle school and high school kids no longer deliver newspapers.

The labor market has changed in the past 30 years, so that fewer and fewer kids get a chance to get a job and start preparing for adult life. The self-centered, avaricious “Occupy” movement shows us exactly what the penalties can be for denying them that chance.