Moe Lane

…from the Sacramento regime:

Under AB 889, household “employers” (aka “parents”) who hire a babysitter on a Friday night will be legally obligated to pay at least minimum wage to any sitter over the age of 18 (unless it is a family member), provide a substitute caregiver every two hours to cover rest and meal breaks, in addition to workers’ compensation coverage, overtime pay, and a meticulously calculated timecard/paycheck.

Failure to abide by any of these provisions may result in a legal cause of action against the employer including cumulative penalties, attorneys’ fees, legal costs and expenses associated with hiring expert witnesses, an unprecedented measure of legal recourse provided no other class of workers – from agricultural laborers to garment manufacturers.

Via Vodkapundit (H/T AoSHQ).  I have a suggestion for anybody in California who, upon reading this bit of nonsense – or any of the other six billion reasons why one might decide that California was more trouble than it’s worth – decides to move: voting with your feet is, in fact, a fine old American tradition.  But do whatever red state that you end up moving to a favor, OK?

REMEMBER WHY YOU LEFT CALIFORNIA IN THE FIRST PLACE.

Moe Lane (crosspost)

The Hill reports that a GOP-commissioned poll for the special election to replace disgraced Anthony Weiner in NY-09 shows a tie.  I was able to get my hands on a copy of the poll results, and the numbers are encouraging: 42/42 split between Republican Bob Turner and Democrat David Welpern (+7 for Turner, -1 for Welpern from July results); 300 likely voters; 24/60/15 Republican/Democratic/Independent voter sample (21/35/33 liberal/moderate/conservative).  That R/D/I number looks about what Siena was finding, which suggests that the sample isn’t skewed too horribly.

Usual caveats apply: it’s not an independent poll.  Still, if you couple this with the Daily News’ endorsement of Republican Bob Turner over Democrat David Welpern (the Daily News is fairly reliably Democratic in its endorsements), and of course the earlier Siena poll from a few weeks ago that showed Welpern seriously under-performing, it’s not unreasonable to conclude that maybe there’s a certain amount of brand damage going on here for the Democrats. (more…)

I suspect that Michael Scherer of Swampland is genuinely confused, while Cenk Uygur of HuffPo is just being disingenuous, judging from their reactions to Barack Obama’s garden rake moment last night.  For those who missed it: Obama wanted to schedule a speech at the last minute that would have interfered with a Republican debate; Boehner told him no; Obama promptly caved. And there was much weeping, and wailing, and gnashing of teeth…

Anyway, I’m lumping Scherer and Uygur together because the two neatly bracket the confusion and dismay that has come over the Left from watching President Obama get smacked down – finally – for being a jackass about something; in this case, for trying to muck about with the Republican debate schedule for no better reason than because Obama’s poll numbers are even worse than his job creation record.  You see, the Online Left has this little narrative where they’re all rough-and-tough digital revolutionaries facing down the thuggish, jackbooted, faceless minions of the VRWC*… so they react badly whenever one of their Designated Man-Gods meets objective reality in an objectively realistic fashion.  ‘Badly’ being defined in various ways, of course. (more…)

By now, you’ve probably heard that Wikileaks managed to have over 250K classified US diplomatic dispatches released out into the digital wilds, complete with the names of what used to be informants and intelligence assets in a large number of unpleasant countries.  I say ‘used to be’ because, thanks to Wikileaks, a lot of those people are going to be arrested, fined, turned, beaten, coerced, raped, tortured, imprisoned, and/or killed.  Spiegel has the details of how it happened; the details can be summed up as A variety of adult children stole and disseminated information that the US State Department had officially deemed too dangerous to distribute free; and these children did so in a manner that demonstrated that the State Department was right. Seriously, the whole thing – what with the theatrical, too-complicated security arrangements; the lackadaisical treatment of the original information; the pointless grudge matches; and of course the lack of self-control – reads like a demented high school clique fight.  Except that those usually don’t end with SAVAK goons raping and murdering dissidents in underground interrogation rooms.

Just to remind potential financial supporters of Wikileaks about what their money is likely to be funding.

Moe Lane (crosspost) (more…)

Apparently, if you get two AI programs together to talk to each other, they act like YouTube commenters without the profanity:

You know what that means?  YouTube commenters have just failed the Turing Test.

This has been proved with SCIENCE! You’re welcome.

Moe Lane

(Via @jtLOL)

(more…)

…civilization will re-coalesce around three groups, probably:

1. The military.  Guns.  Ammo (people always forget that).  Supplies. Organization. Bases.
2. The Mormons. Tight-knit.  Community-oriented.  Supposed to keep two years’ worth of emergency supplies with them at all times.
3. …Waffle House.

(pause) (more…)

James Carville, reliable Democrat, on the President’s attempt to troll the GOP debate:

“I do think this is a really big debate and I think the White House was out of bounds…in trying to schedule a speech during a debate,” Carville said on “GMA.”

[snip]

“Given a choice between watching a debate and the speech I would have watched the debate and I’m not even a Republican or even close to being a Republican,” he said, adding it will be a “barn burner.”

Which it will be, if for no other reason than Mitt Romney will have to take this debate seriously from the get-go.  He’s not the presumed nominee anymore, and Romney wants that status back he’s going to have to up his game – which is why Carville (and everybody else in this business) was planning to tune in next Wednesday.  And why they’re themselves a little ticked off at the President for trying to crash the party; after all, none of the professionals (on both sides of the spectrum) expect anything actually substantive from Obama’s speech anyway…

Via @cayankee.

Moe Lane