What the hell is this guy talking about?:

Lawrence McQuillan, director of business and economic studies for the Pacific Research Institute, a libertarian think tank, said San Francisco’s high prices are a result of its desirability as a place to live.

San Francisco’s “public entitlement programs,” he said, discourage market competition that would boost wages, as well as encourage the lowest-income people to remain in a city where the cost of living will be a hardship.

“Not everybody can live there,” McQuillan said. “Why should people have their taxes used to subsidize working poor people who decide to have children and live in San Francisco?”

Thats right. San Francisco should be some sort of enclave where only rich people can live. I suspect that the high cost of housing in San Francisco is supply and demand plus bubble plus about 20% barriers to development of new housing.

Its just racism. It would be nice if people would just accept that.

Like this guy. He rants on and on about how bad the mexicans are. But the only evidence he can come up with is that “there are totally a lot of prostitutes in mexican neighborhoods, I know because I drive by and see a lot of gyno clinics” and “9/11 OMG OMG!”.

A choice moment:

Last year some 45 billion dollars was wired back to Latin America and the Caribbean by illegal aliens. Even more money was smuggled out of our nation otherwise, as there are illegal aliens who come from other regions of the world and also send billions of dollars out of the United States. These exported dollars are utterly lost to our economy. If we are to consider the enormous cost of tracking down illegal aliens and saving the loss of these exported dollars, our nation would realize significant savings.

Oh, I get it, the reason illegal immigrants are bad for the economy is because they are shipping our money overseas! $45 billion a year! That has to be bad, I mean, almost as bad as the $60 billion a month trade deficit. So only sixteen times as much money.

“The Republican vision is for a world in which the sick and dying get to deduct some of the cost of health insurance that they don’t have — and can’t get — on their taxes.”

-Ezra Klein via Krugman

Islamo-fascism awareness week.

So the UAW decided to let go of retiree health care. Wallstreet is gleeful (according to bloomberg tv this morning in the gym) because “american companies can’t afford to be in the health care business”.

I agree with them. The one thing they didn’t mention is that the reason asian and german car manufacturers can out-compete us companies is because their governments provide pensions and healthcare, not because the workers don’t have it.

If you don’t know much about workers in international shipping, here is a story that is a good start. It turns out that shipping and cruise companies around the world have figured out they don’t have to obey labor laws if they register their ships in countries that might not really have laws, per se. Liberia is a popular choice. The Bahamas also has “favorable” labor laws. More here.

Hello friends. Now, as this is my only soapbox, I want to vent a little. I love that our friends are getting married left and right. This is lovely for all involved and I am happy to be part of it. HOWEVER, could you guys spread this out a little or something? I mean, in two weeks we are heading off to our forth wedding in ten weeks. A little less than month later we are heading off to our fifth, and final wedding for 2007. (we had to miss the sixth we were invited to) Only one of the five weddings was local.

The cost in plane tickets alone is about to break three thousand dollars, once I buy the next set. So, those of you that are currently unmarried. (not counting hotels, food, taxis, rental cars &c) Can you please, if you intend to get married, wait until the first quarter of 2009? We already have two booked for summer ‘08, and I think that is about the maximum I can deal with. The next wedding is in Denver, and due to a profound liquidity crisis caused by the above mentioned weddings (and Elise’s new scooter, to be fair) I am considering walking there.

read Bob Herbert’s “The Ugly Side of the G.O.P.” Kanye was right.

It’s fitting that the “religious” party are crusaders for racism and war.

I welcome all moral people in this country to come to St. Paul, MN, next year, to protest the Republican National Convention. If we’re gonna have a two-party system, let’s replace the Republicans with the Greens.

P.S. Read here about the Jim Crow style (in)justice for the Jena Six. To fight racism in the judicial system, sign this petition for the Jena Six.

http://uofmhungerstrike.com

Check it out! -> info, updates, videos, interviews, pictures, articles, etc.

By commenting on the blog, you can enter the discussion with the hunger strikers about how we students can remind the UofM administrators that they are supposed to be serving the public good - starting with a fair contract for the AFSCME workers who keep our school running.

The website is run by the hunger strikers and their support collective, which is open to all - if you’re in the Twin Cities, please come talk with them and lend a hand at their encampment on the east end of the Washington Ave. pedestrian bridge.

The lunchroom TV has Headline News on, and since yesterday it has been 24×7 on the story of a former football player being indicted for a felony. I saw a promo for four hours of in depth coverage and analysis last night.

Are they serious? This is while congress is trying to vote to reinstate habeas for detainees, an incident with Blackwater security has caused the US military to stop all land travel for non-military us personnel in Iraq. Also, the fed slashed interest rates in an attempt to stop the bleeding in collapse of the housing bubble. And Headline News, the source for “real” news is spending hours on analysis of the stupidest news story in the world.