Over the weekend, I went to my in-laws for a (pre) 4th of July party. One of the other guests was holding forth on the theme of “kids these days” and on “how nobody takes responsibility for themselves anymore.” It occurred to me that I’ve been hearing various individuals bellyache about these themes all my life. In fact, I suspect that folks have been grousing about “kids these days” and the demise of personal responsibility as long as there have been kids.

I can’t imagine there was a time when elders were saying, “you know, kids these days sure are more responsible than we ever were.” Following the logic of these complaints, human society has been in an unrelenting state of entropy since the dawn of time which was obviously some sort of perfect society. That’s obviously hogwash. Through the generations, I figure there has been a better than even chance that any one of these bellyaching elders were just plain wrong. Just a word of warning too look out for crotchety old men trying to pass such crap off as wisdom.

Reverent & Free has some thoughts on Fred Thompson’s “liberal media” complaints. Ruth Holladay flags a study that indicates journalist contribute more frequently to Democratic candidates.

These complaints about journalists don’t really tell us much about the bias of the media landscape without knowing at least two more factors: a) the political orientation of the owners of media outlets; and b) the relative distribution of the Democratic contributing journalists to the Republican contributing journalists.

If you study three journalists and find that Brit Hume is a Republican and the two others work for weekly free papers and are Democrats, you can’t exactly look at that data and say that the media has a liberal bias because liberal journalists outnumber conservative journalists two to one.

The federal minimum wage will rise from $5.15 per hour to $5.85 per hour. One lesser known effect of this will be to raise the amount of a paycheck that is exempt from garnishment under Indiana’s civil collections laws. Garnishments are governed by a formula that directs employers to deduct the mandatory amounts (Social Security, federal, and local taxes, essentially) and, from that deduct the lesser of:
A. The amount by which the result exceeds 30 times the federal minimum wage; or
B. 25% of the result.

So, if your net take home pay would be $400, the employer would figure “A” is $400 – (30*$5.15) which equals $245.50. “B” is .25*$400 or $100. Since $100 is less, that’s the deduction. On the other hand, if your take home is $200, then “A” is $200 – (30*$5.15) or $45.50 whereas “B” is .25*$200 or $50, making the deduction $45.50. Under the current minimum wage, basically, you choose “A” if your take home is $206 or less; and “B” if your take home is more.

The new minimum wage law increases the exempt amount from $154.50 to $175.50. If you make less than $175.50, then you’re essentially garnishment proof. If you make between $175.50 and $234, then the garnishable amount is the difference between your take home amount and $175.50. And, if you take home $234, your garnishable amount is going to be 25% of your take home.

This has been collection law math. You can wake up now.

Maureen Groppe, writing for the Palladium-Item has an article about Congressional pay increases. Reps. Burton, Buyer, Pence, and Visclosky voted to have Congressional pay rise annually with inflation.

Pence joked that he feared Mrs. Pence more than he fears the voters. Even though he voted to keep the automatic cost of living adjustment in place, Rep. Burton said “all lawmakers should have to vote on whether to accept it.” He declined to elaborate on how this position squares with his vote for an increase.

I’ve discussed this before. I don’t really mind paying lawmakers well for doing the job. It’s a drop in the bucket compared to the federal budget. Maybe if we pay them fairly well, there will be less temptation toward corruption, and maybe individuals of limited means can afford to do the job (how such people get elected in the first place is a good question.) Burying pay increases in provisions that raise the pay automatically seems undemocratic but, frankly, I think voters tend to overreact a bit on this subject.

TimF has a thoughtful post on what the immigration bill has meant and will mean to the GOP. Relatively speaking, to the Democrats, it was a matter of some indifference. Certainly Democrats had opinions, but not the white hot passionate ones that seemed to erupt in Republican circles.

In the GOP, Mr.F suggests, this opened a fundamental rift between the business conservatives that fund the GOP and the social conservatives that staff it. The business conservatives tend to benefit from an abundance of cheap labor. Social conservatives often suffer economically from this but, probably more importantly, notice keenly the change in culture that comes more quickly with a substantial immigrant population. I would further suppose that cultural conservatives have an ideological attachment to law and order above and beyond their practical devotion.

The rift has been kept in check by simply looking the other way on the immigration issue. George Bush’s failure to back off on addressing the issue of illegal immigrants in a way that business conservatives would like was probably a political blunder of the highest order. I suspect that Republicans who followed Bush’s lead on this will pay dearly. Democrats will not be above the fray entirely, but I suspect it will be less of a motivating issue for their base.

So, I’m looking at my desk at work and, frankly, it’s a little overwhelming today. Unbidden, the following passage from the Cat in the Hat came to mind:

“That is good,” said the fish.
“He has gone away. Yes.
But your mother will come.
She will find this big mess!
And this mess is so big
And so deep and so tall,
We cannot pick it up.
There is no way at all!”

The Hoosier Pundit has a post entitled Fairness Doctrine, Redux. He mentions Democratic attempts to bring the Fairness Doctrine back to radio. The Fairness Doctrine was a regulation of the FCC which required broadcast licensees “to present controversial issues of public importance, and to present such issues in what was deemed an honest, equal and balanced manner. It has since been repealed by the FCC and aspects of it have been questioned by courts.”

After the Fairness Doctrine was rolled back, we saw an explosion of conservative talk radio — Limbaugh, et al.

The Hoosier Pundit says:

Talk radio, they say, is unfairly dominated by conservatives.

Something about the free market not producing a result that is not politically suitable to their anti-free-market ideology, I guess.

What I want to know, though, is whether this “Fairness Doctrine” can be made to also apply to the Internet.

I have mixed feelings about the Fairness Doctrine generally, but the Hoosier Pundit’s critiques are addressed easily enough:

1. Radio broadcasts are not done in a free market. Want to test this? Fire up your transmitter to broadcast on an AM frequency and see what happens. I’ll bet you a corporation goes to the government court and asks it to enforce the government issued license by, if necessary to stop you from competing on that frequency, sending the government paid police to lock you in the government run jails. Because frequencies are limited, the government sells licenses to the public airwaves. That means only government sanctioned owners — usually those rich enough to afford a license — get to speak over the public airwaves.

2. No fairness doctrine for the Internet — there is nothing like frequency scarcity on the Internet, so the FCC doesn’t get to regulate the speech that goes over it. (At least that’s my hope — sometimes the scarcity doctrine that permits government regulation of broadcasts seems more like a pretext for regulation and not the real reason.)

Fort Wayne Observed talks about “Cornhole” getting Page 1. It provides a link to a post about “Cornhole Tournaments” which has phrases like “Cornhole Leagues” and “Cornhole Doubles.”

I know that, in this context, cornhole refers to a bean bag game sort of like horse shoes. But, as it turns out, there is a little part of me who is still a thirteen year old boy at heart. I keep laughing like The Great Cornholio. Because, where I grew up, “cornhole” had a whole different meaning.

The Associated Press has an article entitled 18-year-old elected official quits after arrest . Eighteen year old David Wichlinski resigned from the Porter Township board in Porter County, apologizing to his family, friends, and the Republican Party after being arrested on drug paraphernalia and underage drinking charges.

Joh Padgett has a thoughtful post entitled When Geeks Go Bad. He is responding to Ruth Holladay who commented on a Wired story about Hans Reiser, a geek who murdered his wife.

Personally, I earn a respectable 36.29% (Major Geek) on the “Geek Test.” I think that puts me more at the “social adversity has made me stronger” end of the spectrum and less at the “nice boy, didn’t talk much” end.