Using your money to limit your choices Here’s a good editorial from Andrea Mrozek in the Ottawa Citizen, explaining how the bloated Liberal government that I blogged about recently is using a “public option” to stamp out stay-at-home moms and private child care options.

Excerpt from:
MUST-READ: How government-run day care impacts families

As some of you may be aware, New York Times columnist Linda Greenhouse wrote a column a couple of days ago comparing the new Arizona immigration law to Nazi Germany, apartheid era South Africa, and states that “the system of internal passports was one of the more distasteful features of life in the Soviet Union”.

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A Response to Linda Greenhouse….

And this new study is from Nature, the prestigious peer-reviewed journal.

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New study shows that human and chimpanzee DNA are very different

April 30, 2010 Dean Baker’s new book strips away the ideology and applies the basics of economics to some of the most pressing issues of the day For Immediate Release: April 30, 2010 Contact: Alan Barber, (202) 293-5380 x115 Washington, D.C. – What would policy look like if we took basic principles of mainstream economics and applied them consistently? What if we looked past ideology and tried to find the policies that make the most sense and work towards an economy for everyone?

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What if We Took Economics Seriously?

Today the MIT Press is publishing CEPR co-director Dean Baker’s latest book, Taking Economics Seriously . It’s a cloth/hardcover compact (4 1/2″ by 7″ and 136 pages) book that offers an alternative Econ 101.

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A Great Graduation Gift for the Econ Major in Your Life

April 30, 2010, Dean Baker’s Statement at the Federal Communications Commission’s Future of Media Workshop Workshop on ” Public and Other Non-Commercial Media in the Digital Era ” I appreciate the opportunity to discuss this proposal for using individual vouchers as a mechanism for supporting non-commercial media.

Link:
New Strategies for Supporting Public and Noncommercial Media

April 30, 2010 (GDP Byte) By Dean Baker April 30, 2010 Productivity growth will be close to 2.4 percent for the quarter. The first increase in inventories since the first quarter of 2008 raised GDP growth in the first quarter of 2010 to 3.2 percent

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Rise in Inventories Raises GDP Growth to 3.2 Percent

Video is here . (H/T Apologetics 315 ) This problem is similar to the problem of divine hiddenness and the problem of evil and suffering . God’s purpose in his relationship with you is not to make you happy

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Jim Wallace discusses the problem of unanswered prayer

Here’s the Center for Disease Control press release . Excerpt: A data analysis released today by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention underscores the disproportionate impact of HIV and syphilis among gay and bisexual men in the United States. The data, presented at CDC’s 2010 National STD Prevention Conference, finds that the rate of new HIV diagnoses among men who have sex with men (MSM) is more than 44 times that of other men and more than 40 times that of women.

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Why didn’t the media cover the new CDC study on HIV transmission?

From Hot Air . (H/T ECM ) Video: Transcript: We’re not, we’re not trying to push financial reform because we begrudge success that’s fairly earned.

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Obama thinks there is a point where you’ve made enough money

May 7, 2010 Stepping Stones Research Briefing 8:30 am – 12 pm Urban Institute Katharine Graham Conference Center 2100 M Street, NW, 5th Floor Washington, DC 20037 Shawn Fremstad, director of the Inclusive and Sustainable Economy Initiative at the Center for Economic and Policy Research, will participate in a panel discussion titled “New Approaches to Measuring Success for Low-income, Women-Headed Families” as part of Stepping Stones , the Washington Area Women’s Foundation’s multi-year initiative focused on increasing economic security and financial independence for low-income, women-headed families in the Washington metropolitan area. Registration is free and available here

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EVENT: Stepping Stones Research Briefing

This is a major story in Europe right now . (H/T ECM) Excerpt: A baby boy abandoned by doctors to die after a botched abortion was found alive nearly a day later

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Baby boy survives for nearly two days after abortion

Byron York writes about the law in the Washington Examiner. (H/T ECM) Excerpt: Contrary to the talk, it is a reasonable, limited, carefully-crafted measure designed to help law enforcement deal with a serious problem in Arizona. Its authors anticipated criticism and went to great lengths to make sure it is constitutional and will hold up in court

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What does Arizona’s immigration enforcement bill really say?

He's got the slide locked back, explaining gun safety rules. Story here from CBS News . (H/T Gateway Pundit ) Excerpt: Pistol-packing Texas Gov.

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Texas Governor shoots coyote with concealed handgun to save dog

This week, the fascist administrators of the University of Calgary decided to hold kangaroo court hearings behind closed doors . Excerpt: The University of Calgary is proceeding with individual non-academic misconduct hearings, which include the possibility of expulsion, for eight members of the Campus Pro-Life (CPL) student group regarding a pro-life display held earlier this month.

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University of Calgary denies legal counsel to accused accused students

Mark Weisbrot The Guardian Unlimited , April 28, 2010 See article on original website As I have noted previously , Latvia has experienced the worst two-year economic downturn on record , losing more than 25 percent of GDP. It is projected to shrink further during the first half of this year, before beginning a slow recovery, in which the International Monetary Fund (IMF) projects that it will not reach even its 2006 level of output by 2015 – nine years later. With 22 percent unemployment, a sharp increase in emigration and cuts to education funding that will cause long-term damage, the social costs of this trajectory are also high

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Baltic Countries Show What Greece May Look Forward To If It Follows EC/IMF Advice

May 6, 2010 Evaluating the New Supplemental Poverty Rate Proposal 9 – 11:30 am The Brookings Institution Falk Auditorium 1775 Massachusetts Avenue NW Washington, DC 20036 The U.S. Census Bureau recently announced it will develop a new supplemental poverty measure, based in part on a well-known 1995 report from the National Academy of Sciences.

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EVENT: Evaluating the New Supplemental Poverty Rate Proposal

In Bermuda, if you happen to live there. Details: On Wednesday, April 28 th 2010 at 7:30pm , I will be presenting a talk in St. John’s Church (located between Saltus and the tennis stadium) entitled, “ A Risen Lord: Defending the Historicity of the Resurrection of Christ .

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Stephen Notman’s lecture on the resurrection is tonight

April 28, 2010 (Housing Market Monitor) By Dean Baker April 28, 2010 Record vacancy rates will sustain downward pressure on house prices. The Census Bureau reported on Monday that the vacancy rate edged up to 11.0 percent of all housing units in the first quarter of 2010, slightly above the year-round average of 10.9 percent for 2009. The data showed a slight decline of 0.1 percentage points in the vacancy rate for ownership units compared with the first quarter of 2009

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Vacancy Rates Stay at Record Highs in First Quarter

From the UK Times . (H/T Secondhand Smoke ) Excerpt: Doctors in southern China are working around the clock to fulfil a government goal to sterilise — by force if necessary — almost 10,000 men and women who have violated birth control policies. Family planning authorities are so determined to stop couples from producing more children than the regulations allow that they are detaining the relatives of those who resist

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How China coerces sterilization and sells the organs of prisoners

In March, MDRC released its initial evaluation of New York City’s Family Reward’s demonstration program. Family Rewards provides cash payments to very low-income parents (below 130 percent of the current poverty line) who meet various conditions related to their children’s education (including children’s school attendance and scoring above a certain level on standardized tests), family health (maintaining health insurance coverage and preventive care), and their own employment and training (full-time work and participating in certain education and training activities).

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New York City’s Family Rewards Demonstration

Unborn baby schemes about voting Republican Story from the ultra-leftist New York Times .

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Oklahoma Republicans override Democrat governor’s veto of pro-life laws

April 27, 2010 New framework would better reflect decent living standards and economic security needs in the US For Immediate Release: April 27, 2010 Contact: Alan Barber, (202) 293-5380 x115 Washington, D.C. – A new study released today from the Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR) proposes a new framework for measuring poverty and basic economic security in the United States. “For years, the minimum amount needed by the typical family to ‘get along’ at a basic level has grown larger and larger compared to the current official poverty measure,” said Shawn Fremstad author of the study and Director of the Bridging the Gaps program at CEPR

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Current Standard Fails to Accurately Assess Poverty

Dean Baker The Guardian Unlimited , April 26, 2010 See original article on website The deficit hawks are going into high gear with their drive to cut Social Security and Medicare. President Obama’s deficit commission is having a big public event on Tuesday in which many of the country’s most prominent deficit hawks will tout the need to reduce the budget deficit.

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Deficit Reduction: Argument by Authority

April 2010, Shawn Fremstad This report details how the dominant framework for understanding and measuring poverty in the United States has become a conservative one. The current U.S. approach to measuring poverty views poverty only in terms of having an extremely low level of annual income, and utilizes poverty thresholds that are adjusted only for inflation rather than for changes in overall living standards

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A Modern Framework for Measuring Poverty and Basic Economic Security