Quotulatiousness

April 28, 2013

Denmark re-thinks their generous social support system

Filed under: Economics, Europe, Government — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 11:52

Denmark has a very liberal approach to welfare and social services … perhaps too liberal:

It began as a stunt intended to prove that hardship and poverty still existed in this small, wealthy country, but it backfired badly. Visit a single mother of two on welfare, a liberal member of Parliament goaded a skeptical political opponent, see for yourself how hard it is.

It turned out, however, that life on welfare was not so hard. The 36-year-old single mother, given the pseudonym “Carina” in the news media, had more money to spend than many of the country’s full-time workers. All told, she was getting about $2,700 a month, and she had been on welfare since she was 16.

In past years, Danes might have shrugged off the case, finding Carina more pitiable than anything else. But even before her story was in the headlines 16 months ago, they were deeply engaged in a debate about whether their beloved welfare state, perhaps Europe’s most generous, had become too rich, undermining the country’s work ethic. Carina helped tip the scales.

[. . .]

Students are next up for cutbacks, most intended to get them in the work force faster. Currently, students are entitled to six years of stipends, about $990 a month, to complete a five-year degree which, of course, is free. Many of them take even longer to finish, taking breaks to travel and for internships before and during their studies.

In trying to reduce the welfare rolls, the government is concentrating on making sure that people like Carina do not exist in the future. It is proposing cuts to welfare grants for those under 30 and stricter reviews to make sure that such recipients are steered into jobs or educational programs before they get comfortable on government benefits.

Officials have also begun to question the large number of people who are receiving lifetime disability checks. About 240,000 people — roughly 9 percent of the potential work force — have lifetime disability status; about 33,500 of them are under 40. The government has proposed ending that status for those under 40, unless they have a mental or physical condition that is so severe that it keeps them from working.

Vikings picks on the third day of the draft

Filed under: Football — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 10:34

I was off in wine country yesterday, attending a meeting of the Toronto, Hamilton & Buffalo Railway Historical Society, so I didn’t follow the draft closely. And even if I had, as I’ve mentioned before, I don’t have much information about college football players (especially in the later rounds), so my interest was more along the lines of how the Vikings drafted to fill needs on their roster rather than on the actual individual players.

In the first day of the draft, the Vikings picked up defensive tackle Sharrif Floyd, cornerback Xavier Rhodes, and wide receiver Cordarelle Patterson. To get Patterson, they traded all their second day picks plus a seventh rounder to the New England Patriots. Some fans were eager to see GM Rick Spielman somehow pull another rabbit out of the hat and trade back into the third round to grab a middle linebacker, but they were disappointed as the Vikings only monitored the second day activities and updated their draft board for the final day.

With their first pick on Saturday, the Vikings selected Penn State linebacker Gerald Hodges with pick 120. Brief profile from Tom Pelissero’s draft class roundup:

A converted safety, Hodges (6-1, 243) looks like a classic Tampa-2 will linebacker — small, fast enough and at his best in space. He’ll primarily compete for time outside and could get a look in the middle, too.

Next was punter Jeff Locke from UCLA, taken in the fifth round with the 155th pick. This is a clear shot across the bows of incumbent punter Chris Kluwe, and the second year in a row that the team has drafted a specialist despite having a high-quality veteran already on the roster.

A left-footer, Locke (6-0, 209) also handled kickoffs in college, though he won’t do that here. He immediately becomes the favorite to beat out veteran incumbent Chris Kluwe, who says he wants to compete for the job but may not even make it to camp.

The sixth round pick was UCLA guard Jeff Baca:

An aggressive blocker with some impressive physical traits, Baca (6-3, 302) split his 45 college starts between guard and tackle. He played some center at the East-West Shrine Game and figures to compete at the three inside positions.

Arif Hasan has a longer profile of Baca here.

In the seventh round, the Vikings had three picks, starting with another Penn State linebacker, this time Michael Mauti:

A productive outside linebacker whose father, Rich, played eight NFL seasons as a receiver, Mauti (6-2, 243) is coming off his third torn ACL in four years. He projects as a mike in the NFL and will compete at the Vikings’ most unsettled position once he’s fully healed.

Christopher Gates’ profile of Mauti here.

Followed by North Carolina guard Travis Bond:

A mammoth inside presence who has dealt with weight issues, Bond (6-6, 329) could get a chance to compete at both guard and tackle.

Christopher Gates on Bond here.

And finally Florida State defensive tackle Everett Dawkins:

A smallish three-technique, Dawkins (6-2, 292) enters an uphill battle competing for a spot behind Williams, Floyd and Christian Ballard.

Arif Hasan’s profile of Dawkins is here.

(more…)

Reason.tv: Why the GOP Should Embrace Science

Filed under: Economics, Politics, Science, Technology, USA — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 10:01

“What has always alleviated our scarcity? What has always alleviated our environmental problems? Technology. What breeds technological dynamism? Economic success,” explains Joshua Jacobs, co-founder of the Conservative Future Project, a new pro-science, pro-technology organization that’s trying to get the Republican Party to embrace an open-ended future filled with driverless cars, stem-cell research, and private space exploration.

If that sounds like a tall order for a party whose leading presidential candidates in 2012 waffled on whether they believed in evolution, you’re right. But Jacobs argues forcefully that the GOP is no less anti-science than the Democrats and actually has a long history of pushing scientific and technological innovation.

Nick Gillespie sat down with Jacobs in Reason‘s D.C. studio to talk about how conservatives might stop standing athwart history yelling stop and march boldly into the future.

The “first sin of conservatism”

Filed under: Humour, Politics, USA — Tags: , — Nicholas @ 09:18

In yesterday’s Goldberg File email, Jonah Goldberg talked about making a speech at Washington College the night before:

During the Q&A a very attractive girl who’d spent much of my talk rolling her eyes and chatting with her friend, asked me a pretty typical question. She asked, more or less: How can you expect the Republicans to have a future if you go around antagonizing liberals, who are half the country, the way you did tonight?

I responded with a few points. First, I did my “Babe Ruth pointing to the outfield.” Then I did “dog pointing at water fowl.” I followed up with “Billy Hayes furiously pointing at Rifki in Midnight Express.” And I closed with the crowd pleaser “Bill Clinton pointing out his nightly selections from the intern pens.”

Once I was done with my interpretive dance “points,” I adjusted my form fitting unitard and made some verbal ones.

I explained that I was not there as a Republican and that I don’t speak for the Republican party. The GOP is simply the more conservative of the two political parties and as such it gets my vote. I speak for myself, for conservatism as I understand it, and — it should go without saying — the riders of Rohan.

Second, liberals — as in people who actually call themselves liberals — make up only about 20 percent of the electorate, while people who self-identify as conservatives make up 40 percent of the country. So even if I was speaking for Republicans, the idea that the key to Republican success lies in avoiding antagonizing liberals is just plain weird. Besides, liberals have had a great run of late antagonizing conservatives. Shouldn’t that mean liberals are doomed?

I made a few other (verbal) points. Deep Space Nine, much like Brussels sprouts and Swiss armed neutrality, is underrated, etc. But here’s the interesting part (“We’ll be the judge of that,” — The Couch). A central theme of my speech was that conservatives should spend less time demonizing liberals and more time trying to understand why so many people find the liberal message of “community” appealing.

I suggested that maybe what she took for my “antagonizing” could more plausibly be described as me offering “hard truths” she didn’t like hearing. This made her quite angry. One might even say it antagonized her. And that’s fair enough. No one likes being told that their anger stems not from being wrongly insulted but from being rightly told that they’re wrong (“Gimme a second; I’m still trying to follow that” — The Couch).

Still, I find this representative of a lot of campus liberals. They seem to think that the first sin of conservatism is disagreeing with liberals, as if it is simply mean-spirited to think liberals are wrong.

Facts, Horrible Facts

Second perhaps only to the glories of women’s prison movies, this was one of the earliest themes of the G-File, going back to the ancient origins of National Review Online, when I would personally tattoo this “news”letter on the back of a dwarf and have him run to each reader and take his shirt off. It was really inefficient.

What was I talking about? Oh right, the “meanness” of disagreement. Without getting into the weeds of the immigration or gun-control debates, there’s a certain liberal attitude that disagreement is just nasty. If you point out that background checks or “assault weapon” bans won’t work, the response is anger and frustration that you just don’t get it.

That’s because, as Emerson once said, “There is always a certain meanness in the argument of conservatism, joined with a certain superiority in its fact.” Whenever I talk to liberal college kids, I think of this line, because when I disagree with them it hurts their feelings (I would say their tears are delicious, but even I recoil at the image of me running out into the audience and licking the cheeks of weepy college kids).

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