American Power

Tuesday, April 9, 2013

Planned Parenthood's Defense of Infanticide

From Marc Thiessen, at the Washington Post:

The fact that Planned Parenthood aggressively lobbies against legislation requiring medical care for such children is appalling. The fact that a Planned Parenthood official testified that killing such children is permissible is shocking. And the fact that most major media outlets — including The Post — all but ignored her comments is distressing.

Our country is deeply divided over the question of abortion. But can we not all at least agree that killing a born child is murder — not a question that “should be left up to the woman, her family, and the physician”?

RTWT.

Companies Track Employees' Every Move

I've had bosses like this, but never this bad.

At yesterday's Los Angeles Times, "Tracking workers' every move can boost productivity — and stress":

Employers count keystrokes, read emails and monitor personal social media accounts. They time bathroom breaks. The cost of efficiency may be worker satisfaction.

Phil Richards used to like his job driving a forklift in a produce and meat warehouse. He took pride in steering a case of beef with precision.

Now, he says, he has to speed through the warehouse to meet quotas, tracked by bosses each step of the way. Through a headset, a voice tells him what to do and how much time he has to do it.

It makes the Unified Grocers warehouse in Santa Fe Springs operate smoothly with fewer employees, but it also makes Richards' work stressful.

"We're just like human machines," said Richards, 52. "But with machines, they don't care whether you feel good, or if you're having a bad day."

Technology has eliminated many onerous work tasks, but it's now one of the factors contributing to a harsher work environment.

Employers are using technology to read emails and monitor keystrokes, measure which employees spend the most time on social networking websites and track their movements inside and outside the office. They can see who works fastest and who talks the most on the phone. They can monitor how much time people spend talking to co-workers — and how much time they spend in the bathroom.

It's all part of an effort to drive down costs and squeeze as much production as possible out of each employee.

Continue reading.

And Part I is here, from Sunday's paper, "As employers push efficiency, the daily grind wears down workers."

A Foe of Unions and Communism

From Kim Hjelmgaard, at USA Today, "Divisive and dynamic, Thatcher leaves an indelible mark":

British leader stood up to unions, backers of government subsidies, foreign policy doves.

LONDON -- For years after her tumultuous time as prime minister, it seemed as if no one in the United Kingdom was undecided about Margaret Thatcher. You are either for her or against her.

But it's not clear whether the enmity and adoration she sparked in her conservative confrontation of labor unions, government subsidies and foreign policy doves will outlast Thatcher, who died Monday at 87 after a stroke.

"It's undeniable that for certain generations she is always going to divide the country," said Timothy Stanley, a historian and writer at the University of Oxford.

"I remember when I was a student, for example, there was a lecturer who at the beginning of the British political history course said: 'Now we all know Margaret Thatcher is evil, but please don't write that on the exam paper,'" Stanley said. "That speaks to how a certain generation in the U.K. feels about her."

But he said Brits born 20-odd years ago are not going to feel very strongly about the coal-mining unions she faced down in the mid-1980s.

"I know it still moves grown men to tears in some places," he said. "But if you grew up in the last 20 years, the days of Margaret Thatcher may as well be in the 19th century."

Three Who Saved the West

From William Kristol, at the Weekly Standard:

And now the last of them is gone. Margaret Thatcher, Ronald Reagan, and Pope John Paul II—three who won the Cold War and, it isn't too much to say, saved the West (at least for a while!)—are no longer with us. Their examples remain.

Thatcher photo reagan_pope_john_paul_thatcher_zpse20bc316.jpg

IMAGE CREDIT: The Looking Spoon.

The Paradoxical Marxist Response to Margaret Thatcher's Death

From Dave Swindle, at PJ Media:

I’ve written in the past about the big impact [Richard] Metzger had in introducing me to counterculture and my disappointment following his embrace of Orthodox Marxism in 2009 — the same year that I started working full time as a conservative new-media troublemaker in the Breitbart tradition. I’m not offended by Metzger’s poor taste, rather just at how predictable and nonsensical it is. Two observations of the paradoxes inherent in the strange tradition that has emerged of using social media to emotionally unload on recently deceased public figures...

Vladimir Putin Visibly Amused by Topless Femen Protest in Germany

Instapundit has the best shot, "I LOVE THE EXPRESSION ON PUTIN’S FACE: Topless Protester Confronts Putin and Merkel."

And at Der Spiegel, "Surprise Welcome: Topless Protesters Confront Putin in Germany" (be sure to click the slideshow).

Plus, from John Hinderaker, "A Futile Protest."

How Teachers Unions Hurt Schools

From Prager University:

But see Althouse:

"'Since Wisconsin stopped forcing public employees to pay union dues against their will...

... union membership in that state has plummeted," writes John Hinderaker'."

Ghoul-in-Chief Exploits Newtown's Dead Children Again

At Twitchy, "Ghoul in chief: Obama flying in Newtown human props for anti-gun speech."

More, "‘I love you back’: President’s gun control rally turns to lovefest."

And at NYT, "Invoking Dead From Newtown, Obama Presses Gun Laws."

The most shameless political exploitation I've ever seen. Utterly shameless.

BONUS: At Astute Bloggers, "OBAMA DEMAGOGUES GUNS AND NEWTOWN AND ATTACKS THOSE OF US WHO BELIEVE IN THE U.S. CONSTITUTION AND THE BILL OF RIGHTS."

Arianny Celeste and Brittney Palmer

At the Sun UK, "Octagon Girls show sexy their side: Arianny Celeste and Brittney Palmer in FHM shoot."

Thatcher Saved Britain With Message of Freedom

At the Wall Street Journal, "Not for Turning":

In that dreary winter of 1979, the piles of uncollected trash in London's Finsbury Park seemed to stretch for miles. The garbagemen were on strike. So too, at one time or another, were hospital workers, ambulance drivers, truck drivers, railwaymen. Also gravediggers: In Liverpool, corpses had to be warehoused as they awaited burial—yet another long queue that socialist Britain had arranged for its patient masses.

This was the "Winter of Discontent," when Great Britain came about as close to economic collapse as at nearly any point in its peacetime history, and it was the country Margaret Thatcher inherited when, on May 3, she defeated the Labour government of James Callaghan to become Prime Minister—the first woman in the office and 49th in a line that includes some of the greatest figures of Western civilization: Winston Churchill, Benjamin Disraeli, the Duke of Wellington, William Pitt the Younger.

***
Thatcher died in London Monday, at age 87, having earned her place among the greats. This is not simply because she revived Britain's economy, though that was no mean achievement. Nor is it because she held office longer than any of her predecessors, though this also testifies to her political skill. She achieved greatness because she articulated a set of vital ideas about economic freedom, national self-respect and personal virtue, sold them to a skeptical public and then demonstrated their efficacy.

Consider economic policy...

Monday, April 8, 2013

Socialists 'Rejoice' at Death of Margaret Thatcher

It's no surprise, although the left's reaction to Thatcher's death is an amazing statement on today's polarized politics in the age of social media.

Image via Louise Mensch and Nick Sutton on Twitter:

Tuesday's Socialist Worker front page - "Rejoice!" #tomorrowspaperstoday #Thatcher (ht @bysshe1) twitter.com/suttonnick/sta…
— Nick Sutton (@suttonnick) April 8, 2013

Plus, Glenn Greenwald reverts to form with a defense of progressive grave dancing, "Margaret Thatcher and misapplied death etiquette" (at Memeorandum).

BONUS: The ghouls at Lawyers, Gays and Marriage throw Greenwald some linkage despite the latter's prodigious pissing on the blog. Disgusting partisan hacks put partisanship above principle, again. Assholes.

Katherine Heigl Bikini Pics

At London's Daily Mail, "Katherine Heigl shows off her killer beach body in floral bikini as she relaxes during girls' holiday."

'Vitriol infests Warren family grief: Thousands are responding to Pastor Rick Warren’s grief with compassion but others use the moment to attack him and his Christian message...'

The culture these days.

Sick. And that would be progressive culture, a culture of intolerance.

At Instapundit, "THE SENSITIVE, COMPASSIONATE LEFT."

And at Twitchy, "It gets better? Sickos continue to grossly gleefully gloat ‘Bet Rick Warren’s son Matthew was gay’."

Margaret Thatcher Dies at 87: 'The outstanding peacetime leader of the 20th century'

At Telegraph UK, "Margaret Thatcher: obituary":

Baroness Thatcher, who has died aged 87 from a stroke, was not only Britain’s first woman Prime Minister, she was also the outstanding peacetime leader of the 20th century.

For more than a decade Margaret Thatcher enjoyed almost unchallenged political mastery, winning three successive general elections. The policies she pursued with ferocious energy and unyielding will resulted in a transformation of Britain’s economic performance.

The resulting change was also political. But by discrediting socialism so thoroughly, she prompted in due course the adoption by the Labour Party of free market economics, and so, as she wryly confessed in later years, “helped to make it electable”.

As for the effects of the Thatcher phenomenon upon British society, these were both more ambiguous and more debatable. Her remark “there is no such thing as society” was wrenched altogether out of the context of the interview in which it was made, and made to seem to be an advocacy of naked individualism, when she was really calling for more personal responsibility. Yet, rightly or wrongly, the 1980s came to be seen as a time of social fragmentation whose consequences are still with us.

Margaret Thatcher was the only British prime minister to leave behind a set of ideas about the role of the state which other leaders and nations strove to copy and apply. Monetarism, privatisation, deregulation, small government, lower taxes and free trade — all these features of the modern globalised economy were crucially promoted as a result of the policy prescriptions she employed to reverse Britain’s economic decline.

Above all, in America and in Eastern Europe she was regarded, alongside her friend Ronald Reagan, as one of the two great architects of the West’s victory in the Cold War. Of modern British prime ministers, only Margaret Thatcher’s girlhood hero, Winston Churchill, acquired a higher international reputation.

Continue reading.

Indeed, she was the towering figure of postwar international politics. Next to Ronald Reagan, there is no one who stood more strongly in defense of the West and Western values in the face of the totalitarian ideological onslaught.

It's no wonder her enemies are just ripping into her and dancing on her grave.

See London's Daily Mail, "'Tramp the dirt down': George Galloway's extraordinarily crass tweet leads the Left’s sickening 'celebration' just minutes after Baroness Thatcher’s death." (At Memeorandum.)

And behold the hatred, at Twitchy, "‘Crack open the champagne’: Twisted Twitter users dance on Margaret Thatcher’s grave," and "#DingDongTheWickedWitchIsDead: Disgusting depravity continues over Margaret Thatcher’s death."

You Can Feel It All Over

My wife was tripping on the Academy of Country Music Awards. The show was broadcast from the Arena at the MGM Grand, where we just saw the Eagles a couple of weeks ago. I was watching Mad Men, but when I went down to get something to drink I see Stevie Wonder playing "Sir Duke" and hung out to watch for a minute. I don't see a video from the show but here's an old clip. Everyone can really feel it.

And Eddie at My World live blogged it:

They are rushing things at this point, they must be behind. Hunter Hayes, aka the 12 year old looking kid is performing. Apparently Stevie Wonder is singing with him. That's, um, an interesting collaboration. He's a pretty good performer, I have to give him that. He plays guitar & piano. He's like Bieber with an accent, musical talent, and no punk attitude. Ooh, a horn section, cool! And the Hunter & Stevie on Sir Duke (You Can Feel It All Over) was actually pretty decent.

And at the Los Angeles Times, "Miranda Lambert is Academy of Country Music Awards' top winner."

Vegans and Pagans Win 'Equal' Workplace Rights in Britain

This is another one of the stories that's just wow.

At London's Daily Mail, "What an insult to Christians! After crucifixes are allowed at work, human rights quango tells firms: Give vegans and pagans special treatment too":

Druids, vegans and green activists should be given special treatment at work, according to ‘lunatic’ advice from the equalities watchdog.

The Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) warns employers that they risk ‘potentially costly legal action’ unless they allow staff to follow their ‘religion or belief rights’ in the workplace.

This could include giving believers time off to go on pilgrimages, such as druids and pagans going to Stonehenge, while environmentalists should be free to lecture other staff about their car use.