October 6, 2010

Why aren't you watching Kathleen Parker and Eliot Spitzer on CNN?

Posted by Dr. Terry Stoops at 2:42 PM

CNN's hot new talk show, "Parker Spitzer" debuted in last place on Monday. Even Nancy Grace had more viewers than Whatshername and Love Client No. 9.

A Baltimore Sun columnist said it best, "CNN's 'Parker Spitzer' finally debuted Monday night, and what a load of obnoxious, self important noise it is."

I particularly liked this slam, "So while I guess you could call it counterprogramming, who does CNN get to go head to head with Fox's O'Reilly at 8 but a former politician and poster boy for hypocrisy -- a one-time prosecutor who prosecuted prostitutes even as he was paying excessive amounts of money to them for sex. And then he lied about it and tried to cover it up. Eliot Spitzer: Someone we can all believe in."

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The destructive effects of CO2 (restrictions)

Posted by Dr. Roy Cordato at 2:00 PM

According to the EPA new controls on CO2 could slow new construction for years. And on top of that the benefit in terms of global temperatures will be a whopping .0015 celsius. And don't put away your shorts and tee shirts just yet, we won't see all that reduced warming for 90 years. So the next time some warmist tells you about sea level rise that will be occurring over the next century, or polar ice cap melts or whatever the horror story--ask them what it is that they are proposing that will prevent it from happening. Here's what the EPA concluded:

(D)uring this time, tens of thousands of sources each year would be prevented from constructing or modifying...In fact, it is reasonable to assume that many of those sources will be forced to abandon altogether plans to construct or modify. As a result, a literal application (of the permit requirement) to GHG (greenhouse gas) sources would slow construction nationwide for years, with all of the adverse effects that this would have on economic development.

 The EPA goes on to conclude that:

Based on the reanalysis the results for projected atmospheric CO2 concentrations are estimated to be reduced by an average of 2.9 ppm [parts per million] (previously 3.0 ppm), global mean temperature is estimated to by reduced by 0.006 to 0.0015 ˚C by 2100.

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Re: Not what I would call a cheery forecast

Posted by Jon Sanders at 1:58 PM

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The economy will be somewhere between fairly bad and very bad over the next six to nine months.

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*cough*cough*

Although technically, driving into a tree would also qualify as change you can believe in. There's no denying the change, no sir.

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Not what I would call a cheery forecast

Posted by Dr. Terry Stoops at 1:48 PM

From Bloomberg.com:

“We see two main scenarios,” analysts led by Jan Hatzius, the New York-based chief U.S. economist at the company [Goldman Sachs], wrote in an e-mail to clients. “A fairly bad one in which the economy grows at a 1 1/2 percent to 2 percent rate through the middle of next year and the unemployment rate rises moderately to 10 percent, and a very bad one in which the economy returns to an outright recession.”

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New Carolina Journal Online exclusive

Posted by Mitch Kokai at 12:21 AM

The latest Carolina Journal Online exclusive features Anthony Greco's CarolinaJournal.tv report on the N.C. Senate District 9 race between Republican Thom Goolsby and Democrat Jim Leutze.

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EEOC: Obesity is a Disability

Posted by Daren Bakst at 12:05 AM

The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission has filed a lawsuit against an organization for allegedly firing someone based on her obesity.  According to the EEOC, this would be a violation of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) since, according to them, obesity would be considered a disability.  It should be noted that the EEOC has claimed in the past that obesity is a disability.

There has been a significant question regarding whether obesity is a disability under the ADA.  A lot may depend on whether an individual is morbidly obese and therefore is substantially limited in performing major life activities, as opposed to someone who is just overweight.

After passage of the ADA Amendments Act of 2008, which made it much easier to prove disabilities, there may be little question that obesity is in fact a disability.

A key question is what does it mean for a physical or mental condition to "substantially limit" a major life activity?

The United States Supreme Court in a case called Toyota Motor Manufacturing, Kentucky v. Williams, interpreted “substantially limits” to mean “prevents or severely restricts."  In other words, the Court interpreted the law properly by looking at the plain language of the statute.

Congress didn't like this (among other things) and wanted to water down the requirements of the ADA.  In the 2008 legislation, Congress expressly rejected the Court's standard and included a vague provision in the bill indicating that "The term `substantially limits' shall be interpreted consistently with the findings and purposes of the ADA Amendments Act of 2008." 

Courts will be struggling to come up with any coherent and consistent guidance on the meaning of the term because Congress failed to provide any clarity.  Regardless, the definition of "substantially limits" is less stringent that it used to be.

Businesses should expect more ADA lawsuits and a greater need to reasonably accommodate individuals due to their "disabilities" as defined under the ADA.  The ADA case law that had developed for nearly two decades is in some respects out the window as courts grapple with the new and poorly drafted ADA Amendments Act of 2008.

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Three strikes and you're out?

Posted by Mitch Kokai at 11:54 AM

Guilford County commissioners are trying again this fall to convince voters to support raising $11.6 million through a sales tax hike.

Voters have rejected the idea twice before, and John Locke Foundation researchers have identified good reasons for them to reject the idea again. You'll find details here and in Michael Sanera's comments below.  

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Royal Society pulls back a warming claims

Posted by Dr. Roy Cordato at 11:34 AM

Great Britain’s leading scientific body has issued an updated guide to climate change. In the guide it acknowledges uncertainties in the science regarding global warming and that it is impossible to know how the earth’s climate will change in the future. This is according to a news story in the London Daily Mail. The importance of this cannot be overstated. If future climate change cannot be predicted then neither can the future consequences of that change, whatever they may be. All predictions of future catastrophe are based on specific predictions of future warming. This also means that all cost analysis that is based on these predictions are just a meaningless. As reported in the Daily Mail article, the guide states that :

Uncertainty can work both ways, since the changes and their impacts may be either smaller or larger than those projected…There is currently insufficient understanding of the enhanced melting and retreat of the ice sheets on Greenland and West Antarctica to predict exactly how much the rate of sea level rise will increase above that observed in the past century for a given temperature increase.

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Obama loses the presidential seal

Posted by David N. Bass at 11:30 AM

Once in a while in politics, the looming tide of electoral punishment for an unpopular ruling party is manifest in physical ways. This is one of those times.

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Perspective on the Wake County school board actions

Posted by Dr. Terry Stoops at 09:41 AM

As the News & Observer pointed out, "Goldman stressed that the vote doesn't mean a return to the old student assignment policy that gave weight to diversity and reaffirmed her commitment to community-based schools."

The disagreements between Goldman and Tedesco amount to competing visions of student assignment, visions that do not include forced busing.

One more thing. John Tedesco owes Debra Goldman an apology. Disagreements are inevitable but name-calling is unacceptable.

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Barone asks why Dems aren't so fired up about Obama now

Posted by Mitch Kokai at 09:11 AM

Michael Barone explores one cause of the enthusiasm gap between Democrats and Republicans in his latest column for the Washington Examiner:

So why are Democrats less enthusiastic? And why has "the progressive donor base," as Democratic consultant Jim Jordans reports, "stopped writing checks"?

I don't think it's just because the economy remains sour or that President Obama failed to jam a public option in the health care bill.

I find a more convincing explanation in an offhand phrase in a subordinate clause in a brief article by Adam Serwer of the Center for American Progress on the Washington Post's opinion pages. "There's no question," Serwer writes, defying anyone to disagree, "that Obama has completely reversed on his promises to roll back Bush-era national security policies."

For it is not economics but foreign policy that has motivated the left half of the Democratic Party over the last decade.

When Howard Dean's supporters were declaring that they wanted to "take our country back" in 2003 and 2004, they weren't talking about repealing the Bush tax cuts. They were talking about withdrawing U.S. troops from Iraq and taking a more conciliatory and respectful stance to the leaders of Old Europe and revolutionary Iran.

Similarly, Obama's refusal in 2007 and 2008 to admit that there was even a smidgen of success to George W. Bush's surge strategy in Iraq -- even today he will only hint that the surge worked -- cannot be chalked up to an intellectual incapacity to assimilate the facts.

It can only be explained as an unwillingness to rile the base of the Democratic Party whose concerns, as we know from Bob Woodward's account of the president's conduct of deliberations over what to do in Afghanistan, are never far from his mind.

Nevertheless, he has left these Democrats disappointed.

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Much as they might wish they could ...

Posted by Mitch Kokai at 09:04 AM

... Congress can't repeal economics.

That's the headline for the latest John Stossel column posted at Human Events:

It's raining! I don't like it! Why hasn't Congress passed the Good Weather Act and the Everybody Happy Act?

Sound dumb?

Why is it any dumber than a law called the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, which promised to cover more for less money?

When Obamacare was debated, we free-market advocates insisted that no matter what the president promised, the laws of economics cannot be repealed. Our opponents in effect answered, "Yes, we can."

Well, Obamacare has barely started taking effect, and the evidence is already rolling in. I hate to say we told them so, but ... we told them so. The laws of economics have struck back. 

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Latest dispatches from the campaign trail

Posted by David N. Bass at 08:40 AM

• WUNC Radio reports on redistricting in the Tar Heel State following the midterm elections.


• Republican U.S. Sen. Richard Burr, running for a second term, polishes a conservative image.


• Democrat Jeff Doctor, U.S. Rep. Sue Myrick's foe, is new to politics and voting, according to The Charlotte Observer.


• Yes Weekly catalogues comments at a candidate forum in Greensboro.


• Republican Thom Goolsby, Democrat Jim Leutze face off in a candidates' forum.


• Democrat Patsy Keever is leading her Republican opponent in the 115th House District, according to a Civitas poll.


• The same voters concerned about the economy in 2008, and who trended Democrat, are now trending Republican, says Public Policy Polling.


• Pantano pushes back on claim that he doctored a political ad.


• Tea Party official endorses Democratic U.S. Rep. Mike McIntyre over Republican Ilario Pantano in the 7th Congressional District.


• GOP creates anti-McIntyre website focused on his voting record.


• A rematch in state Senate District 24: incumbent Democrat Tony Foriest against Republican Rick Gunn.

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No Good Deed Goes Unpunished

Posted by Dr. Karen Y. Palasek at 08:24 AM

The proof is in the upending of the Wake County School Board's plans to restore neighborhood school choices in lieu of the academically unsuccessful current school busing situation. Thanks to school board member Debra Goldman (Raleigh News & Observer). corrected

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Don’t see the benefits of bailouts and ObamaCare? Maybe you’re just too angry

Posted by Mitch Kokai at 07:07 AM

While anxious voters seek out many sources of information, angry ones “want to rally round their convictions,” says Marcus. “They’re not interested in objective information, but only in the kind that reinforces what they believe.” Democrats can therefore bombard talk shows and op-ed pages and blogs with studies showing that TARP prevented a financial implosion or that the health-care-reform law will save billions of dollars, but many of the voters they need to reach aren’t hearing it.

I wonder if this means Begley is angry about the climate. Perhaps that’s the reason she clings to global warming alarmism despite all the evidence against it.

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Samuelson highlights the importance of entrepreneurs

Posted by Mitch Kokai at 07:06 AM

Uh, no.

As Robert J. Samuelson reminds us in the latest Newsweek, job creation depends upon entrepreneurs:

If you’re interested in job creation—and who isn’t these days?—you should talk to someone like Morris Panner. In 1999, Panner and some others started a Boston software company called OpenAir. By 2008 they sold it for $31 million. The firm had then grown to about 50 workers. It turns out that entrepreneurship (essentially, the founding of new companies) is crucial to job creation. But as Panner’s experience suggests, success is often a slog.

What’s frustrating and perplexing about the present job dearth is that the U.S. economy has long been a phenomenal employment machine. Here’s the record: 83 million jobs added from 1960 to 2007, with only six years of declines (1961, 1975, 1982, 1991, 2002, 2003). Conventional analysis blames today’s poor performance (jobs are 7.6 million below their pre-recession peak) on weak demand. Because people aren’t buying, businesses aren’t hiring. Though true, this omits the vital role of entrepreneurship.

Since entrepreneurs are so important, it makes sense to avoid government policies that place too many barriers in their way, as Joe Coletti explains:

It's no wonder prudent business owners and entrepreneurs are thinking twice before hiring new workers, Coletti said. "We have to remember that business owners weigh the benefits and costs of hiring new workers," he said. "That's an impossible task when the costs are unclear. Some businesses know for certain that they need new workers. Others aren't so sure. Rather than risk hiring someone who will be too costly to keep on board because of new government mandates, many business are making due with the staffing levels they have now."

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Ballotpedia: North Carolina has the nation’s 19th most competitive legislative elections

Posted by Mitch Kokai at 07:05 AM

That’s according to a new study from Ballotpedia, which ranks North Carolina No. 19 among 46 ranked states.

The overall ranking is based on three measures: primary contests (North Carolina ranked No. 11), major party competition (No. 23), and open seats (No. 32).

Be certain to monitor CarolinaJournal.com throughout the election season for details on the state’s most competitive legislative contests.

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New Carolina Journal Online features

Posted by Mitch Kokai at 06:55 AM

The latest Carolina Journal Online exclusive features Karen Welsh's report on the facts surrounding warnings of teacher layoffs during North Carolina's most recent budget debate. 

John Hood's Daily Journal explains wasteful state and local governments deserve a significant portion of the blame for federal government's overspending.

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