links for 2010-09-29

No worse tyranny

“There is no worse tyranny than to force a man to pay for what he does not want merely because you think it would be good for him.” –American writer Robert A. Heinlein (1907-1988)

links for 2010-09-17

links for 2010-09-16

An evil evil

Andrew Klavan:

It was JFK who signed an executive order giving public sector unions the right to collective bargaining. We need a president with the guts to revoke that order. Unions – a necessary evil in private life – are just an evil evil in the public sector. Nothing necessary about them at all.

Willfully doing damage, or completely incompetent?

Investor’s Business Daily:

It’s not as bad as it could’ve been. That, as the Labor Day weekend began, was the cold comfort that many in the media took from the still-dismal August jobs report. Can’t we expect something a little better?

True enough, 68,000 new private-sector jobs were created last month, showing that private businesses, though gasping for breath, aren’t dead yet.

But overall, 54,000 jobs disappeared, raising the toll during the “Recovery Summer” Vice President Joe Biden ridiculously hailed two months ago to 238,000. Nor was the uptick in the unemployment rate to 9.6% from 9.5% what you expect in a “recovery.”

This is not “better than expected”; it’s worse than expected. This can be gauged not by market expectations for modest job creation, but by long-term experience watching how jobs are created in a normal recovery. By that gauge, we’re in the worst jobs slump since World War II.

[…]

If it wasn’t clear to everyone by now, it should be: All the actions this government has taken — the $700 billion TARP program, the $862 billion “stimulus,” the health care takeover, financial reform — haven’t “saved or created” 3.8 million jobs, as claimed. Instead, they’ve destroyed millions of jobs — and with them, the hopes and dreams of those who’ve lost the jobs.

But the administration remains clueless, hinting that it may seek another “stimulus” costing billions. This bunch is either willfully doing damage to the U.S. economy, or completely incompetent.
[Emphasis added. –R]

True then, true now

“I think we have more machinery of government than is necessary, too many parasites living on the labor of the industrious.” –Thomas Jefferson, letter to William Ludlow, 1824
Amen!

Callin’ Baton Rouge

I know the Tigers aren’t opening the season at home, but this time of year is when I miss the city I grew up in the most.

ATPM 16.09

The September issue of About This Particular Macintosh is now available for your reading pleasure.
Shhhhhhh. Be vewy, vewy quiet. Mark is hunting dwagons. He then ponders who’s really using less paper, us or them. (Them being corporations, not dwagons. Er, dragons.)
Yours truly had the pleasure of interviewing a friend: Heather Sitarzewski. Heather’s a very creative gal; the things she comes up with never fails to surprise me.
ATPM staffer Wes Meltzer has had to travel quite a bit of late for his other employer (the one that actually pays him). With finances being tight enough that a MacBook Air wasn’t in the cards, and needing something lighter than a 13-inch MacBook, Wes decided to try living with an EeePC netbook running Ubuntu Linux on the road.
Rob regales us with his tale of iPad purchasing, noting that our favorite fruit company’s tablet is an earnings and revenue monster.
If you like flowers, you’ll love this month’s desktop pictures selection. ATPM reader Sterling Garwood shares some photos he took in North Carolina.
Calling out the hazmat team, too much caffeine, avoiding FBI warnings on DVDs, old-fashioned copy editing, menopause, multi-level marketing, outsourcing the boss, and recycling: all in the line of duty in Out at Five.
Ed boldly goes where most of us fear to tread: into the realm of accounting. With his look at Acclivity’s AccountEdge and FirstEdge, things appear to be heading into the black. Finally, Eric puts his baby in then hands of Griffin’s Loop, a tabletop stand for the iPad.
As always, this issue of About This Particular Macintosh is available in a wide variety of formats for your enjoyment:

Thanks for reading, ATPM!