Silflay Hraka

John Hosier just became the poster boy for raising the minimum wage.

It’s the kind of December evening when the Hosier family might want to stay home.

It’s not just a place of worship and fellowship. The Salvation Army’s affiliated store offers discounted goods and employs Mr. Hosier full time. The $6-an-hour job is the family’s sole paycheck, which amounts to barely $200 a week. Even with government aid, such as food stamps, the family is on poverty’s doorstep. “If it wasn’t for the Salvation Army, I don’t know where I’d be,” Hosier says.

That’s the same Salvation Army who pays their CEO an annual salary of $166,850 a year. It’s not like they don’t have money. Obviously the Salvation Army–a charitable organization–could pay John Hosier more if the Salvation Army chose to, yet it does not. If an organization devoted to helping the poor doesn’t consider his skill set to be more than $6 an hour, why in the heck should the government force them to pay him more?

Now, it could be that the Salvation Army pays John Hosier a crappy wage because they’re not really devoted to helping the poor, preferring instead to spend the monies donated to them for other, darker, reasons–in which case people should feel free to declare that they’re not giving another penny to the SA until they pay a living wage to their employees. If enough individuals joined in, such a boycott might actually accomplish something over time, by hitting Salvation Army generals in the pocketbook. A drop in donations is a restriction on income, and managers of charitable organizations with a decreasing income don’t stay managers for long

All a raise in the minimum wage does is cut the outflow of Salvation Army dollars, while leaving the incoming flow of donations untouched. Part of that outflow is John Hosier’s $6 an hour. Another outflow is the ostensible mission of the Salvation Army, housing the homeless, feeding the poor, yadda, yadda, yadda. Managerial salaries, including W. Todd Bassett’s 166k a year, are a third outflow. Which of the three do you think will be the least likely to be cut in response to a raise in the minimum wage?

Which of the three monetary outflows will be the most likely to be cut? Given that a large percentage of Salvation Army tasks are done by “beneficiaries,” people who compete directly with John Hosier for Salvation Army dollars and can legally do the same tasks he for performs for less money, he’s more likely to suffer, rather than benefiting, from an increase in the minimum wage.

At which point he’ll be a great poster boy for the argument that raising the minimum wage doesn’t help America’s poor at all, though I bet that job will engender considerably less media attention than his current one does.

Hey, there’s a global warming middle ground!

Catastrophe movies are exciting and the prospects of catastrophe in real life even more exciting. Plus, lots of people want to think they are fighting in a moral crusade for a great good against evil and ignorance. They think they need to paint an extremely disastrous picture of the future in order to motivate people. So the prospect of global warming has a lot to offer. Plus, Mother Gaia is morally superior to us human enviro-sinners. Never mind that we are the products or creations of Mother Gaia. We fell out of Eden somehow or other when Mother Gaia’s natural selection made us too intelligent.

The deep skeptic school on global warming is also making an economic mistake. They correctly point out that restraints on CO2 emissions will raise the price of energy and therefore slow economic growth and lower living standards. But when they fail to push instead for a huge acceleration of nuclear, solar, wind, and other non-fossil fuel technology development they miss the opportunity to help create technologies that lower energy costs and clean up environments at the same time.

I must not be a deep skeptic, as my argument on CO2 emissions is not that restraints are expensive, but rather that even if everyone accepted the theory of anthropogenic warming, CO2 restraints are inefficient, inelegant, and driven by an impulse to punish the perceived sinner, rather than fixing the ostensible problem. This is one reason I continually refer to global warming as “The Rapture for secular humanists,” another being that I consider it a wonderful turn of phrase, and am thereby driven to share it with others as a means of illustrating my brilliance.

A third is that it functions as an excellent acquaintance filter at parties, allowing me to classify people based on their reaction;

“Bwa-ha-ha.” — People like me. They should be given a quality beer–a Delirium Tremens or Allagash Interlude.

“Ha. Christ, you’re an asshole.” — People related to me, or friends of long standing, who should also be given a quality beer, though one of perhaps slightly less caliber.

Pained silence - Neighbors of a different political bent whose children regularly interact with mine. They should be given a quality beer, because people in close circumstances have to get along, after all. Behind each other’s backs we can use terms like “closet facist” and “goddam hippies” to relieve the internal strain.

“..majority of climate scientists….Exxon-funded…catastrophe…..Kyoto” - People in need of new thought pathways. They should bring their own beer, but probably prefer wine in any case.

“*&^%$% you, establishment tool.” — kids and puritanical lefties. Intellectually they can be ignored. Physically, they should be watched, as the kids will try and snake the quality beer from the cooler and the puritans–their pale features twisted with fury–will inform the offsping that you’re evil. Sobbing children interfere with quality drinking time.

“You used to be such an independent thinker.” — liberal ex-girlfriend who cannot detect irony in her own pronunciations. Make sure her car gets a quality bumper sticker applied to it before she departs.

“She’s certainly let herself go.” — People I am married to.

“Quit groping me.” — People I am married to who need at least one more drink.

“Genius drips from your lips as honey does from the comb.” — The drunk in the mirror. He almost certainly needs another quality beer.

I had every intention of spending some quality time with the Carnival this evening, reading each post and editing the collection to make sure only the best posts were included. I didn’t do that. I got a call right after lunch from an old, good buddy of mine who was flying into town for the evening. Instead of spending my evening on the sofa with the Carnival, I spent my evening over dinner and a few beers, telling tales of days long gone.

I’m not sorry. Good fellowship will always take precedence over the blog. I’m sure you all understand.

The upshot of all this is that the Carnival is once again unedited. Every post submitted is included and I’m sorry that I didn’t have time to read them. I am sure they are all uniformly excellent. I promise to do better next week. Unless I’m hung-over from my weekend fishing at Cape Hatteras.

Here’s the Carny. I hope you enjoy it.

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Madeleine Begun Kane presents It Is Hereby Resolved (New Year’s Resolution Humor) posted at Mad Kane’s Humor Blog.

Paula presents What Class Are You? posted at Queercents.

Leon Gettler presents Soaring CEO pay shows “market failure” posted at Sox First.

Adam presents The Dawn of a New Era of Scholarship posted at Sophistpundit.

The Monk presents McGwired in controversy posted at The Key Monk.

Sagar Satapathy presents Saddam Executed posted at Sagar’s Take On The World.

mw presents It’s the war, stupid. posted at Divided We Stand United We Fall.

Jerry Monaco presents Atrocities, Imperialism, Hypocrisy: A Hypothetical posted at Shandean Postscripts to Politics, Philosophy, & Culture:.

GrrlScientist presents Seeking the Sacred Raven posted at Living the Scientific Life.

Wayne Hurlbert presents Life changes: Taking the first step posted at Blog Business World.

James D. Wickson presents What is Tarot? posted at oudler.

Big Picture Guy presents Sex Appeal posted at BigPictureSmallOffice.com.

J.C. Wilmore presents The text of Cheney’s speech to the General Assembly leaked posted at The Richmond Democrat.

Andrew Ian Dodge presents Enviro-idiot makes prat of himself? posted at Dodgeblogium.

Lauren Taylor presents Paris Hilton Goes In For The Kill posted at Tra La La.

Madeleine Begun Kane presents O’Donnell v. The Donald posted at MAD KANE’S HUMOR BLOG.

Jennifer Miner presents Best Hotels and Resorts in Maui: Find the hotel that is right for you, be it a budget inn or a luxury resort. posted at Luxury & Resort Travel articles.

Jennifer Miner presents JetBlue Airways - Pros and Cons: Jet Blue has devoted passengers. Does the airline deserve a sterling air travel reputation? posted at Luxury & Resort Travel articles.

Pushpa Sathish presents Lessons from the Lemonade Stand: 101 Common Sense Management Tips posted at Business Intelligence Lowdown.

Jack Yoest presents Media Training at The Leadership Institute posted at Reasoned Audacity.

Nneka presents 5 Sure-Fire Steps to Successful Resolutions posted at Balanced Life Center.

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That’s it for this week’s Carnival. Thanks to all those who submitted a post and thanks to all of you for stopping by. If you’d like to submit a post for Carnival consideration, you can do so at Blog Carnival. Until then, God bless.