Walking the Walk

Hey, do you remember how the Fast and Furious program of the ATF let firearms "walk"?
Would I surprise you if I told you it didn't happen?
The way it was advertised to me was that the ATF was actually buying these weapons. They weren't and they didn't.
No, instead what actually happened was that no prosecutors would touch the cases they were looking at where people were buying guns in Arizona and then selling them to Mexican drug cartels.
Guns were bought and walked by ATF agents acting almost entirely on their own. These were the agents who were later held up as heroes by Issa for being against gun walking.

Left to Work

You know, and this is going to sound strange coming from a guy who organized the largest theatrical shop in New York City (outside of the Metropolitan Opera) for a labor union, I'm actually fairly sympathetic to right-to-work.
Now, many people don't know what "right-to-work" actually means. If you ask a labor person they'll say "right to work for less", and if you ask an anti-labor person they'll just start ranting about socialism or some such.
Right to work means that there is a law in the state which says that the employer may not require you to join a labor union in order to be employed. It does not (and cannot) mean that you may not join a union (you have the right to collectively bargain in most industries as a matter of federal law, the states cannot void that.)
Note that I say the employer does not have the ability to force you to join a union. Most of the time people talk about this they say the union makes you join. You don't work for the union. You work for an employer. It's the employer which forces you to join*.
Union folks can get irritated that they organize a shop, they establish working conditions with an employer, and then some employees decide not to join the union, getting essentially a "free ride" off of the union.
That's true. And I say get over it. Make your union so awesome that people are willing to pay dues to be a member. If you can't do that, you don't deserve to be a union.
On the other hand it does indeed seem to be true that non right-to-work states have better wages. Whether that's a cause or effect of the states' not having anti-labor laws I don't know.
I suspect we're about to find out.

*You actually cannot be compelled to join a union. You can be forced to pay union dues but you can always be "core status" which means you pay the union for its collective bargaining but not any of its political activities.

War on Men

There's a War on Men don'tcha know? Of course, it requires that you believe Pew Research polls.
I was going to write a Communist Manifesto-style parody, something on the order of "There is a spectre haunting men and it is the spectre of feminism" but honestly the whole thing is just so dumb that I can't even put braintime to it.
Texas likes to brag that its economy is larger than Australia's. We that's not true according to the CIA at least.
It's amusing to me that New York and New Jersey (combined) easily smoke Texas' GDP. And, of course, California gives Texas a great thrubbing.

I can and will republish Danny Thomson's brilliant art as often as I can.

I think it's funny that Texas thinks they'd get a free trade agreement with the US if they seceded. What's more likely is that they'd be treated like a banana republic. The US and Mexico would alternately take turns devaluing Texas currency just for our amusement. Maybe Texas could trade with Cuba? If Austin remains with the US, would we have to airlift in supplies?

Hostess

OK. So. Hostess is filing Chapter 11 because their employees struck when the company demanded givebacks on wages.
And the big joke is that "Oh noes! No more Twinkies! Ermahgerd!"

Nope. Not buying it.

So, you're filing Chapter 11. Liquidation. On a brand-name product. The question here is: who is going to buy the assets? And once they buy them, what are they going to do with them? Re-negotiate with the same unions?

Of course there is something approaching zero actual reporting on this beyond the silly "Our childhoods are over!" snarkiness.

And you wonder why I post pictures of owls...

Occupy

Isn't it just a tad embarrassing that the most organized and active people out there helping the victims of Hurricane Sandy are OccupySandy?

 I mean, it's not embarrassing for the Occupy folks -- it's embarrassing that the state doesn't have the capability -- or desire -- to get in there and do the work.

Of course, anarchists around the world will all say "Right, exactly" in unison.

Left Without Comment

Drew's Prediction about Mitt's Taxes

So my theory is this: Mitt Romney never paid less than 13% in taxes for the last 20 years.
And.
There are some of those years which he did not pay taxes during the year.
I think he made up for the owed back-taxes in subsequent years.