Comments for Secular Right

Comment on Miscellany, May 4 by AYY

AYY — Sat, 12 May 2012 09:04:27 +0000

I went over to some of the lefty atheist blogs,like Greta Christina, Camels With Hammers, and a few others. The commenters, with only a few exceptions, are throwing fits that God forbid a Republican, of all things, could be a lobbyist in a secular/atheist organization.

It’s as though they’re saying just because you think you’re an atheist doesn’t mean that you’re a proper atheist. And you’re not a proper atheist if you don’t have the proper leftist belief system.

Comment on Francois Hollande’s marketting coup by Jeeves

Jeeves — Tue, 08 May 2012 15:02:07 +0000

The Dow’s down 162 as I write. The CAC, FTSE, and DAX are also down big. The French and the Greeks have said “no” to austerity. Expect Obama to make another speech shortly.

Comment on California’s insufficient bite of the Apple by Mike

Mike — Mon, 07 May 2012 17:02:52 +0000

This post is a classic example of the “waste, fraud and abuse” fallacy: point out a concededly ridiculous example of government spending (diversity bureaucrats)and use it to suggest that you can balance the budget by eliminating such wasteful spending, as opposed to raising revenue or making less politically popular spending cuts.

Comment on Francois Hollande’s marketting coup by Mike

Mike — Mon, 07 May 2012 16:59:09 +0000

Couldn’t one argue that using Germany as an example of fiscal discipline confuses cause and effect?
That is to say, Germany has less debt than other countries precisely because it never had a sharp recession that reduced government revenue. Thus, the success of the German economy shows NOT that fiscal austerity works but that avoiding a speculative bubble/bust means they never had a real recession in the first place, thus making destructive austerity measures unnecessary.

Comment on Francois Hollande’s marketting coup by Snippet

Snippet — Mon, 07 May 2012 16:57:24 +0000

It is indeed interesting that they are using the language of growth and fiscal responsibility.

I guess that means, “we” won the debate.

The fact that they are dedicating themselves to enacting policies that will almost certainly achieve the opposite is just an annoying little technicality.

Comment on The limits of rational thought by Mike

Mike — Fri, 04 May 2012 17:40:31 +0000

“…new wave of economic research looking at micro-level employment patterns that shows strong earning effects and no employment effects of min-wage increases.”

I wonder if these new studies consider that there used to be many more places to get a minimum wage job…now there are very few small businesses competing with the chains. Huge companies don’t care.
Gonna be hard to quantify jobs that don’t exist.

Second thought…has anyone ever considered that the mayor(s) of New York only want(s) high-priced dwellings in the city? What better way to make Manhattan the jewel it has become than to squeeze out building affordable apartments through rent control. Push the low wages and low property tax to Jersey. That just came to me and I just woke up a little bit ago, so I will admit that may be stupid.

Comment on Miscellany, May 4 by Jeeves

Jeeves — Fri, 04 May 2012 16:34:44 +0000

Re: Secular Coalition For America, the atheist lobby mentioned in the first bullet point, the linked news story links to the Coalition’s scorecard for presidential candidates. Obama comes out on top ins every category, including being “consistently positive” toward “scientifically based regulations and legislation.”

So does this mean God is a Climate Change Skeptic?

Comment on Miscellany, May 4 by Jeeves

Jeeves — Fri, 04 May 2012 16:05:56 +0000

Egyptian Bonk of the Dead

Either a felicitous failure of Spellcheck or Mr. Olson’s sly allusion to necrophilia.

Comment on California’s insufficient bite of the Apple by cynthia curran

cynthia curran — Thu, 03 May 2012 15:22:59 +0000

California problems are related to prop 13 property taxes are lower than let’s say Texas but icnome state and some other taxes are higher. Liberals were right Prop 13 shifted taxes elsewhere, unfortunatley changing prop is hard since many middle and elderly benefit from it more. No conservatives mention that Prop 13 changed the tax structure.

Comment on California’s insufficient bite of the Apple by Jeeves

Jeeves — Mon, 30 Apr 2012 18:51:21 +0000

OT: I wonder if the dearth of commenters at SR lately is due to the Word Press Registration/Login requirement that was apparently introduced (w/o fanfare) when this website was recently reformatted. At any rate, as I eventually figured out, the right hand tab “Meta” is where you go to register.