I am all for paying teachers a competative wage to both encourage new entrants and keep the best. The teachers are not the problem, the unions however protect the incompetent and prevent real reforms like competition. Show me the unions are interested as much in delivering a superior education and appreciating the country's situation as they are in their own pay and benefits and then we can have a discussion about the taxpayer making the sacrifice!!

The point is whether we are talking about pay and benefits or collective bargaining, its still about the money. Collective Bargaining is a cost the taxpayers have to support because the unions have a "right" to future higher pay and benefits then they would otherwise have without it. Ultimately, Collective Bargaining is just a demand on future taxpayers that current politicians don't have to pay.

When the U.S. goes the way of Canada, what will happen to Canada and the other Free Nations? How far will they slip toward socialist utopia?
The fact is the U.S. is the standard bearer on the world's stage of ecomomic freedom. Canada and western Europe enjoy the level of free markets they do because the U.S. is an indirect driver of their economies. The limited state-of-the-art medical technology they enjoy is the direct result of the U.S. companies making the investment and the rest of the world benefiting.
What will happen to them when the U.S., under Obama and the next generation of Liberals put us on the same level as they are? Remember the Rush song "trees" - "For they passed a noble law,
And the trees are all kept...

Reading and quoting Hemingway (BTW-different context and time) doesn’t provide you any credibility in solving a real world problem. I’ve been there and had to make tough choices in hiring under the jack boot of mandatory minimum wages. When business owners are forced to hire people at a wages higher than their real value two things happen; 1) they hire less people and 2) they demand more of those they hire. Result: poor and unskilled people remain just where they are. Yes those that are employed with an ever increasing minimum wage have their $1 for candles and school field trips but a funny thing happens when they stop at the grocery store, they notice food prices have gone up to keep those workers employed at higher rates as well. The...

For the man-made GW proponents; the deck is stacked against you; the Sun and natural effects are clearly the more likely causes (greater hypothesis explanatory power) and thus the attendant set of solutions says re-direct resources to areas of greater good. Watch the situation and monitor the climate. Better technology in the future may indeed show a significant correlation between man's carbon output and temperature increases. Also there are benefits to some GW: increased food production, less cold related deaths, etc.

With less probability that Man-made GW (and dwindling credibility as new evidence points to made up data, hiding of facts, exaggerated claims) is the cause, proponents have some 'splainin to do'. Nothing to date...

Numbers going up and down are the facts. Man-made GW is the conclusion. No one doubts that temperatures fluctuate - what is in dispute is the cause and more importantly, the efficacy of the solutions.

On one hand, if the Sun and natural variations as described in Unstoppable Global Warming (Singer) is the cause, all the Cap-and-Trade (and similar schemes) won't do anything but put $$$ in Gore's account and deprive humanity of the capital to improve the things man can effect (long list: disease, hunger, poverty.

On the other hand if man is responsible and it is proven the proposed solutions will affect the changes (i.e. reduce temperatures by limiting carbon output), then indeed this is the course to follow.

This...

There goes Walter Williams again... making complete sense that liberals can't seem to understand.
The reason we have any unemployment whatsoever, long term, is due to the distortion in ecomomic signals the MW creates. Should the Government intervene when I buy a computer at a garage sale at 10% of its orginal price where both I and the seller benefit? Either of us are free to walk away from the transaction if there is not a reciprocal advantage. There are no "Minimum Second Hand Goods Pricing" laws - which would only serve to restrict the market and thus have it greatest impact on the poor. Why is a commodity such as labor any different? The smart and/or motivated will always find a way to better wages thus negating the need for a...