Sifting Around The Web 7

-Through Student Of Objectivism I have discovered a very funny news story regarding the construction of a mosque. Youtube provides the video:

-It's the perfect way to approach this situation.

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-Since I'm almost done with The Death Of Common Sense: How Law Is Suffocating America, I'll go on to tell you all about how disappointed I was with the entire thing. Save your money, the book isn't worth it. The author, Philip K. Howard, blames the current legal situation in America on laws being "too rational", observe:

"Rationalism looms before us with more logic and reasons than we can possibly repsond to, demanding almost all our energy, but ultimately not making any sense. We must kill it again. This time, however, it will take no cold war or arms race: All we have to do is recognize it for what it is. "The era of absolutist reason is drawing to a close," Havel warned the Western democracies in 1992, and "it is high time to draw conclusions from that fact."

-Aside from sounding dangerous close to Hitler, what Howard fails to realize is that all of those laws which he talks about are not ridiculous because they are "too rational"; they are ridiculous because they are irrational. It is because of irrational facts like "Federal statutes and formal rules now total about 100 million words", which makes America legal system stink.

-"The era of absolutist reason is drawing to a close," Havel warned the Western democracies in 1992, and "it is high time to draw conclusions from that fact." I wonder how Havel came to that conclusion? Maybe through logic and rational thinking? That sentence alone is not only self-defeating but comical to say the least.

-There are only two reasons on why I insist on finishing this book. One of the reasons is because I like to finish what I start. The second reason, which is far more important, is because this book has wonderful facts about government spending that would even blow John Kerry's mind.

"...to the U.S. Department of Defense spending $2 billion on travel and $2.2 billion processing that paperwork for that travel..."

...ETC.

-Other than this book being a treasure chest of facts telling of government mismanagement and wastefulness, it doesn't offer much else.

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-I'm ripping this off of Witch Doctor Repellent nasty, but this pisses me off SO much that I have to post it here.

-I'll also add that I am not suprised that people were clapping in the background; afterall it's all of our fault that slavery existed and that black people are 8.5 times more likely to go to prison than us white people.

-But then again, who am I? Just another "white man" trying to get you down, I'm sure. Do yourselves and America a favor and start educating each other instead of using the race card as a crutch.

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-This is completely unbelievable.

"NEW YORK — More than 650 economists, including five winners of the Nobel Prize for economics, called Wednesday for an increase in the minimum wage, saying the value of the last increase, in 1997, has been "fully eroded."
Economists including Nobel prize winners Kenneth Arrow of Stanford University, Lawrence Klein of the University of Pennsylvania, Robert Solow of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Joseph Stiglitz at Columbia University and Clive Granger of the University of California-San Diego said in a statement released Wednesday that the real value of today's federal minimum wage is less than it has been at any time since 1951.
Federal minimum wage is $5.15 an hour. Twenty-two states and the District of Columbia have set their minimum wages above the federal level."[source:http://tinyurl.com/yep5oj]

-I'll tell you what; I am no Ivy-League economist but I do know that the rise in minimum wage is one of the dumbest ideas ever. Who are these people?!