77 Cents?

In his most recent State of the Union Address, the President repeated the Democrat rallying cry that women today still earn 77 cents for every dollar a man earns.

Is he correct?

According to an article at politifact.com, Obama "takes a solid statistic and describes it incorrectly."

Gary Burtless, an economist with the Brookings Institution says, "If more men tend to be employed in occupations that pay higher wages both to men and women, then men may enjoy an overall earnings advantage even if all women in each occupation receive exactly the same hourly pay as the men who are employed in the occupation."

According to the article linked to above,

Indeed, if you look at men and women working in the same professions, the pay gap is much smaller (though for most professions, it doesn’t disappear entirely).

For computer programmers, for instance, women earn 95 cents for every dollar a man earns. For cashiers it’s 92 cents. For cooks and customer service representatives, it’s 95 cents. Other occupations have more unequal ratios. Women who are personal financial advisers, for instance, earn just 58 cents of what men in that job earn.

But, even if we were to take Obama's 77 to 100 ratio at face value, wasn't the first act he signed as president, The Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act of 2009 supposed to have remedied that?

It's just further prove that anyone looking to Big Nanny Government to improve his or her life is looking in the wrong direction.

An Anti-Eulogy for Pete Seeger.

Sorry if I can't write a glowing eulogy for Pete Seeger, who died Monday in New York City.

He has been hailed as the Godfather of modern folk music, but if I find his proteges - Joan Baez, Bob Dylan, Arlo Guthrie - boring and banal, imagine how I feel about his music.

Liberals today may view him as "...... prominent singer of protest music in support of international disarmament, civil rights, counterculture and environmental causes", but it would be more accurate to refer to Seeger as a life-long Communist.

In an article written in April 2006, David Boaz called Seeger "Stalin's Songbird". Seeger may have finally apologized "for not seeing that Stalin was a supremely cruel misleader" but in the end, he was still a communist.

Mourn Pete Seeger's death, if that's your style, but I say the world is better off without him.

Satanists release design for proposed Oklahoma State Capitol monument.

According to religionnews.com, the New York-based Satanic Temple unveiled its proposal for a monument it intends to erect next to another religious statue: a depiction of the Ten Commandments on the Oklahoma State Capitol.

"The group wants to erect the monument next to a depiction of the Ten Commandments that has been on the state grounds since 2012. Legislators opened the door to such displays when they pushed through a bill in 2009 giving permission for the Ten Commandments monument, which was paid for with private funds.
The plans show a 7-foot tall-statue of a seated Satan flanked by two children. The design includes two important Satanist symbols: the pentacle, located above Satan’s head, and the baphomet."

When or if the Oklahoma Capitol Preservation Commission will approve the Satanists' application is anybody's guess. The panel imposed a moratorium on new displays after receiving a Hindu group’s application for a monument to the Hindu god Hanuman.

By allowing a display of the Ten Commandments, the Oklahoma Capitol Preservation Commission has opened the flood gates for other religious groups to file similar applications. Someone should have seen this coming.

Unfortunately, there appears to be only two options available; either allow any and all religious groups to erect monuments or remove the Ten Commandments and allow none. Personally, I'd prefer the second option.

Better Late Than Not At All.

It would appear that I've broken from tradition this Holiday season. Normally on News Years Eve and New Years Day, I'd post something about the books I've read during the past year and some thoughts on books that I might have a go at in the upcoming year. Sadly there was no final blog post of 2013 or first blog post of 2014 this time around.

I wish I could write that I had a good reasons for this break from tradition, but unfortunately, I can only put it down to laziness. I just couldn't motivate myself to make the December 31 slash January 1st deadline.

But now, it's 12:47 AM, I've awoken and can't get back to sleep.I may as well post that piece now and get it out of the way.

My list of the books I've read or reread in 2013 follows:

Watcher from the Shore        Ayako Sono
No Reason for Murder          Ayako Sono
The Betrothed                       Alessandro Manzoni
A Guide to Christian Meditation   John Bartunek, LC
Carmen                                  Prosper Mérimée
When the Well Runs Dry       Thomas H. Green, S.J.
Opening To God                    Thomas H. Green, S.J.
Silence                                    Shusaku Endo
John Paul The Great              Peggy Noonan
Crossing the Threshold of Hope   John Paul II
The Red Battle Flyer                 Manfred Freiherr von Richthofen
Cavalry of the Clouds               Alan Bott
Write Away                            Elizabeth George
Defending The Free Market        Fr. Robert Sirico
Twelve Years a Slave              Solomon Northup

Some of the books that I began reading but couldn't bring myself to finish include :

The Bomber             Liza Marklund
The Comedienne     Władysław Stanisław Reymont
Return to Order: From a Frenzied Economy to an Organic Christian Society    John Horvat
En Route                J.K. Huysmans

I hesitate to add The Mysterious Affair at Styles by Agatha Christie to either list as I'm currently reading it. Starting on it late, I couldn't finish reading it before the December 31 deadline,although I intend on finishing it.

I know. This isn't much in the way of "The Year in Review", but it's the best I can do just after midnight.

"Obamacare" Banished.

The custodian of the Queen's English - AKA Michigan's Lake Superior State University - announced its 39th annual list of words "banished" from the language.

Included in the list, "selfie," "twerking" and "hashtag." Good riddance, I say.

The list of words banished also includes the ever popular nickname for the Affordable Care Act, "Obamacare". I'm sure that millions of people wish that Obamacare itself, and not just the word, could be banished completely.