According to the News & Observer, all of North Carolina’s federal representatives voted against the possibility of a Congressional pay raise except for one person: NC-12′s Mel Watt.

The bill, HR 5146, would for all intents and purposes entirely prohibit a Congressional pay raise in January, which is usually standard procedure to accommodate cost of living changes. The salary amounts, according to the News & Observer:

[...] $174,000 for rank-and-file members, $193,400 for the House and Senate majority and minority leaders and the Senate president pro tempore, and $223,500 for the House speaker. Other top federal salaries are $400,000 for the president, $230,700 for the vice president, $223,500 for the chief justice, $213,900 for associate Supreme Court justices, $199,700 for Cabinet officers, $184,500 for appellate judges and $174,000 for district judges.

In colloquial terms? A whole big chunk ‘o change. Of course, that doesn’t mean most Congressmen are rolling around in cash — between having two residences (one back home, which is required, and one in DC) and having to pay for typically expensive DC food all the time, typical Congressmen typically don’t have exorbitant amounts of cash on hand. However, when the economy drops (like it’s been doing now), Congressmen can live like kings — after all, things become cheaper. That’s not even considering the fact that most (not all) Congressmen usually have significant nest eggs from prior jobs (as most were well paid before they became Congressmen), meaning they do pretty well for themselves. No matter how you twist it, though, $174k is a lot of money — why does Watt suddenly want more, especially when there is no inflation to adjust for?

And, thankfully, everyone in NC, on both sides of the aisle, voted for the block — that is to say, they refused the pay raise. Except for Mel Watt. Watt’s not poor by any stretch — he attended Yale Law and practiced law for over 20 years. Watt’s also pretty notorious for being pretty shady with money — just last year, he ran seriously afoul of Rep. Ron Paul after cutting out lots of parts of a Federal Reserve auditing and transparency bill, which he edited to protect shady practices on the part of banks (many of which comprising his campaign donors).

I have no idea what Watt’s rationale for voting for a pay raise is — by all means, it likely doesn’t matter, as it has already passed the House and the Senate. Still, I’d like to know why in the world he thinks $174k isn’t sufficient pay when a huge percentage of his state doesn’t even have a job in the first place.

I have nothing wrong with protesting against laws — it’s constitutional, sometimes effective, and a great way to voice dissent. However, I don’t think disagreeing with a law gives you carte blanche to violate that law, especially en masse. And that’s specifically what is going to happen in Raleigh on July 28.

On July 28, the Raleigh Amphitheatre and Festival Site will be hosting “Cauzin’ Vapors…Legalize It 2010 Summer Tour” — that is, a pro-Marijuana legalization music festival, like Woodstock with (maybe) more pot. While the booking was not explicitly done by the state (it was done by the company Live Nation), one can already see the issue with the tour: it pretty much encourages consumption of illegal drugs. Of course, the hilarity of this is that the aforementioned convention center is right across from a Raleigh Police Department. Still, it’s pretty clear the entire city of Raleigh can’t mobilize to babysit a bunch of concert goers — so what’s a city to do?

In my opinion, something needs to be done to plan for issues like this. I’ve honestly never understood how local governments could willingly stand aside and watch the law being flagrantly broken just because of the lack of police force. Be it by fining people or by increasing police force on days when such “tours” go on, the government needs to be willing to uphold the laws to everyone, even if a lot of people are violating the law at the same time. Put simply, there is no (and should be no) “group discount” for crime. I’d much rather see an entire concert shut down than to allow it to continue when illegal actions are being implicitly condoned.

But still, it may be that this “tour” manages to get by without a single joint — which would be the ideal situation, as unlikely as it would be. The best protesters are those who not only are able to articulate their dissent on a subject, but those who are also able to display that they do so not out of selfishness or greed, but rather simply by reason. There are a lot of remarkably interesting arguments out there that promote legalizing marijuana — “we do it anyway” isn’t one of them.

The North Carolina Department of Revenue, in a clear attempt to find NC residents and further tax them for online purchases, has recently demanded that the online megastore Amazon.com turn over information regarding over 50 million purchases made by NC residents between 2003 and 2010. Amazon.com, knowing the full ramifications of giving the NC the ability to retroactively tax its citizens, is refusing to turn over the information, and has filed a First Amendment lawsuit in federal court. The NC DoR, in turn, has threatened to sue as well, pending Amazon.com fails to turn over their records by April 19. Long story short? If Amazon.com wins, your privacy online is maintained, and you don’t have to pay state taxes on stuff you purchased in 2003. If the NC Department of Revenue wins, you’ll not only have all of your dirty laundry viewed by tax men, but you’ll probably be charged for it too.

These taxes are the kind that are ultimately destructive to consumer rights, tax law, and our freedom as a whole. The NC DoR already has an “Amazon Tax” in place — but it’s anything but fair. The Department of Revenue has absolutely no right to begin to search retroactively through buyer records online to start taxing its citizens further: that’s an unjust way to make a dollar, and it’s a quick way to make online retailers positively scared of North Carolina. Heck, even taxing people for online purchases in the first place is highly underhanded and questionable — it undermines commerce and fundamentally exploits companies that do not even exist in the state. Perhaps worst of all, retroactive taxes of online goods would set a precedent for NC taxes to extend to many things in your past — meaning those “tax free” purchases you made 5+ years ago may come back to bite you in a new and very irritating way.

The “Amazon Tax” concept is not entirely original. The taxing of online retail has been implemented in states like New York and Rhode Island for quite some time, and it has caused a great deal of controversy in these locations. In fact, according to the Tax Foundation, Rhode Island has actually lost money, because Amazon responded to their “Amazon Tax” by dropping available programs and thus halting a lot of commerce. In New York, the tax was upheld in a court, but legal battles continue to this day. Because of its size and power, Amazon.com is not afraid to punish a state for being too hasty with taxes — and they’re likely to punish North Carolina (and implicitly North Carolina citizens) if the Department of Revenue begins to retroactively tax online purchases.

Let’s just hope Amazon wins this little war. North Carolina citizens can’t afford to be taxed on stuff they purchased over 7 years ago.

When I say “Life Imprisonment”, most people think that means literally life imprisonment — that is, imprisonment until death. Life imprisonment is a serious punishment for serious crimes, and it is used in part to prevent criminals from re-entering society and posing a threat to normal citizens.

But if the NC Supreme Court has anything to say about it, that may no longer be the case.

The long story short is that the NC Supreme Court is considering allowing things like “good behavior” credits to factor into the presumed 80 year sentence they believe comprises a “life sentence” — meaning, in layman’s terms, some really well behaved “lifers” might be able to get out with only 30 year sentences. This would make it possible for over 24 people serving a life sentence in North Carolina right now to be freed immediately.

It will be interesting to see how this goes. On one hand, “good behavior” credits and parole are a pretty normal part of the justice system — it’s a good incentive to keep order and to ensure the prisons remain relatively open. Furthermore, I’m sure there is a legal precedent that allows releasing prisoners — the NC Supreme Court is almost certainly not establishing a new precedent. Still, this could easily become a PR nightmare. It’s very hard to have to explain to normal, tax-paying citizens why the state is allowing people who were thrown into jail for life — meaning they committed a heinous crime and were deemed largely dangerous — out onto the street once again.

If you haven’t heard, a sizable number — more than a dozen thus far — of states are planning to sue the federal government regarding the recent health care legislation. According to their actually rather well constructed arguments, the health care bill recently passed — officially the “Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act”, termed by Republicans “Obamacare” — is a gross abuse of the Interstate Commerce Clause and an infringement of states rights and, thus, unconstitutional. Virginia Attorney General Kenneth Cuccinelli is particularly angry about the legislation, as it allegedly tramples on legislated Virginia law prohibiting mandatory insurance, and he has been at least figuratively heading the charge.

So, the question is, should North Carolina get involved?

First of all, to be clear, this is not an actually pertinent question: North Carolina Attorney General Roy A. Cooper is a Democrat, who would never so blatantly attack his own party, meaning the question is moot. This argument is, fortunately or unfortunately, more theoretical than literal. But it’s still important.

With that being said, why sue the government and implicitly reject the health care reform?

First off, I will agree with Cuccinelli — there is something inherently troubling about the federal government’s arrest of state rights via health care. The audacity of the government to step in and essentially take over the entire system when individual states can fix these issues in a manner better tailored to their needs is rather troubling. I won’t lie, I find it incredibly worrisome that the federal answer to an industry problem is to simply seize the industry and destroy large swaths of it without much input from states. Call me paranoid, but I’d much rather have my state government make such decisions based upon the individual needs of my state rather than have the federal government make blanket statements for everyone.

Of course, the implied issue with the above is that there is a significantly high chance that states will have to foot a lot of the bill for the legislated health care reform, particularly in terms of the legislated insurance “exchanges”. Like it or not, federal changes to the health care system cost states money, especially in terms of having to accommodate new rules, potential loss of business from insurance companies, and even from something as ridiculous as the 10% tax on tanning. This kind of issue seems to be a big player in this lawsuit: from a state government perspective, this 2010 health care reform is not merely the federal government taking away control, but it’s the federal government taking away money as well.

So does this mean we should expect (or even want) our Attorney General to sue the federal government? Well, no. Honestly, they have better things to do, and it’s a massive waste of state funds and state funded lawyer time to be working on such a project. Attorney Generals have better things to do.

The individuals who should be pursuing such a lawsuit should be individuals — people who don’t want to be part of the system — not politicians. All a good health care lawsuit would really require is for an individual to simply refuse to pay for health insurance and to refuse to pay the subsequent penalty. This is not to say this would be a perfect method, as it is not entirely guaranteed to gain enough traction to make it to where it would need to be (the Supreme Court) to revoke the law — but it’s a start, and certainly a more appropriate one than allowing an Attorney General do it. At least in my mind, it is far more respectable for an individual to do so and stand up for his rights than for a politician, angry about the opposing party, to inappropriately use his position as an Attorney General to levy against a bill he doesn’t like.

The North Carolina Energy Office has decided to launch an Energy Star rebate program, which will, from April 22-25, provide 15% off the purchase of select Energy Star labeled appliances (specifically washers, dishwashers, refrigerators, and freezers) from any store participating in the program. The money for this program comes from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, which provided $8.8m for the campaign. The North Carolina Energy Office estimates that 49,960 “Energy Star” appliances will be purchased, “saving enough electricity to power 536 homes for a year”.

Sounds great, doesn’t it? Except it’s a horrible, horrible idea.

First, allow me to make the obvious argument: $8.8 million could go to help a lot of families. Sure, there’s always the “trickle down effect”, and supporting local businesses is valuable to the community, but $8.8 million dollars could go to helping a lot of families stay afloat for a good amount of time. Certainly, it wouldn’t be many families, and it might not keep them afloat for very long — but it’s still significant. I don’t mean to be eco-unfriendly, but the ability to eat and sleep on an everyday basis in my mind takes priority over energy savings.

The second argument? Energy Star is a very questionable program, especially when funds could go elsewhere.

The Energy Star program was initiated in 1992 as a method to encourage appliance manufacturers (particularly appliances that suck down a lot of power, like dryers) to design appliances that used less energy, and thus taxed less on the grid and lower greenhouse gas emissions. Without going into too many details, the theory of encouraging people to switch to Energy Star appliances is pretty simple: it saves everyone (electricity-related) money and the environment in the long run, and in the short term it helps encourage appliance sales.

The problem is, it’s not quite as cut and dry is that. For a variety of reasons, the Energy Star program is questionable, at best. For one thing, very recently, government investigators revealed that the program would literally accept a space heater with a feather duster and fly strips attached and label it “Energy Star” without even seeing it in person or investigating it. Appliance makers could very well be lying about energy efficiency and no-one would be the wiser. Even on the most basic level, “Energy Star” rated appliances can cost double the price of non-rated appliances, as well as can be a heck of a lot more difficult to work with. Furthermore, on a technical level, lots of the “Energy Star” appliances out there are using cheaper materials, which obviously break easier and, in some cases, simply contribute to landfills and require the customer to purchase a replacement. And, of course, the statistics are usually inflated about the effectiveness of the “Energy Star” program — meaning those wonderful numbers mentioned in the beginning of this article are likely just drawn from thin air. Clearly, the program has its flaws.

This is not to imply that going non-energy efficient is better — rather, it’s simply an indicator that going “Energy Star” does not necessarily benefit the consumer, the environment, or the government. It may benefit the energy companies, but only in small doses. And, of course, this is presuming that consumers would be replacing non-”Energy Star” appliances with “Energy Star” appliances — there is very likely the case that someone could replace a rated appliance with another rated appliance, meaning absolutely nothing to the government!

Of course, we can’t blame the NC Government too much for this — it’s federally handed down money, tagged for a specific purpose. Still, I can’t help but to think it’s sad that we spend so much money on such an unproven project when people in the state desperately need the money to survive.

The Wake school board recently passed a very very controversial resolution ending what is typically called “busing for diversity” — that is, busing minority students to specific students across the county in order to maintain proper race stratification and to balance poverty levels. And, of course, certain people are angry this passed, and that the busing ended.

“Busing for diversity” is a plan that’s been around for quite a while. The idea is, simply, that certain areas of counties/states/districts naturally contain a higher population of one minority or another, and sometimes as a “result” of that, certain minority neighborhoods are poorer than others. Following logically, many argue, schools local to these poorer neighborhoods are filled up with poor, under-funded, uneducated minorities, who are basically given a raw deal in a school that does not give them the opportunity to escape their problematic lifestyle. Thus, the answer to this issue is simply to take a wire whisk to the entire school district — to take different racial/economic groups and to bus them around the county to different schools, thus enduring a fairer division of race, economic status, and academic possibility.

Of course, this sounds nice, but what other groups argue is that this leads to what is in effect institutionalized racism. In the process of figuring out specifically what minorities are being disenfranchised, one must inherently single out racial groups and deem them worthy of “special” treatment, and consequently determine that other “majorities” are getting too fair of a deal. What inevitably happens is that the state has to basically pick a group (typically, but not always, African-American or Hispanic students) and “punish” them by making them go all over the wild blue yonder so school statistics look balanced. Basically, in the attempt to be “fair”, it ends up massively inconveniencing everyone and often only being impressive in the racial statistics of the schools involved in the program.

So what do I think?

First of all, both of the issues above don’t entirely address the issue. On one hand, “busing for diversity” is institutionalized racism: it’s an attempt to arbitrarily bring focus to race where it oftentimes needs not be taken, and it really is a kind of ridiculously PC attempt by schools to look “diverse” in perhaps the most racist way possible. On the other hand, however, the issue of low-income “minority schools” still remains — like it or not, these types of schools do exist, and they need to be fixed. Such schools create a kind of cycle of low-education begetting low income begetting disenfranchised children, and it’s a loop that basically screws promising kids out of a future.

Put another way, both positions above don’t really address the issue — the under-performing schools. “Busing for diversity” is just slight of hand, an attempt to randomly shuffle a deck of cards to possibly make things more “fair” just through random chance. Not doing so means that those who are in the under-performing schools are trapped there.

So what should we do? Two things.

First off, the answer to poor performing schools is not to start throwing the students all around the county. The answer is to fix the problem itself. School districts need to have the money and the ability to financially support these schools and send in highly talented teachers and principals who can turn these schools around. Even if 100% of the students get free lunches and can’t afford a single pencil, schools need to provide a great education, and if students are under-performing, they need to find a way to remedy the situation, not put a band-aid on it by sending select students out of the area and bringing other students randomly in. As I mentioned above, shuffling the proverbial cards does nothing but try to randomize the chance that an unwitting student gets forced into a bad school.

Additionally, further opportunities outside of the hard-and-fast highschool system need to be available. If a student is particularly gifted, regardless of his school or economic situation, accommodations should be made for him to be able to go to a community college for some classes — some school districts have implemented programs like this to great effect. Indeed, this can run the risk of putting a “brain drain” on local highschools — but simultaneously, it will allow promising students even in the worse schools an avenue to higher quality, more focused education, and possibly a proper segue into undergraduate studies. Investing the little money into these kids to allow them such opportunities pays back in the future of a state fifty-fold — it’s a small expense we should be willing to pay.

Of course, it’s unlikely much will happen in this case. The unfortunate fact is, this entire debate’s been perverted by the fact it’s become partisan — either side is not willing to think of much else but beating the opposition. Creative, objective thinking has been quashed in the attempt to “win” in a partisan debate, which never results in anything productive. It’s too bad the citizens of Wake County are too busy protesting and complaining to think of real answers.

There has recently been quite a stir over at Salon.com regarding an article about “hipsters” — the new “hip” generation, the self-proclaimed “creative class” without either the creativity or the class — are finding refuge in food stamps.

For the uninitiated, hipsters are best described as the new face of the “arts class” in America — stereotypically clad in too-skinny jeans and flannel shirts, you find hipster-type people frequently today in arts programs and other “creative” outlets, particularly in the music world and the fashion world. As the name implies, hipsters are all about what is “hip” in their own small world, particularly in the popularity of being “ironic” — it’s not uncommon to see hipsters obsess over vinyl records, expensive organic foods, androgynous clothing, and vintage clothing, obsessing over aesthetics to the detriment of anything even resembling reality. Admittedly, “hipsters” is somewhat of a pejorative, as is what they were once called — arrogant trust fund babies in arts programs.

The reason for the gnashing of teeth regarding the aforementioned article is fairly simple: Hipsters are typically arrogant and picky, and in this case embody everything wrong with welfare. Close examination of the article reveals why these “hipsters” are on food stamps: careers listed in the article range from “installing museum exhibits” to “part-time blogging” and “AmeriCorps volunteer”. It doesn’t take long to understand why the aforementioned jobs fell through the cracks when the economy worsened: with perhaps the exception of the first, the jobs weren’t jobs, they were attempts at not doing jobs, or at least jobs in the very loosest sense. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with volunteering or blogging, or even being “creative” — all are valuable in their own right — but one must ground himself/herself in an actual job with a living wage before one does either. The ability to find a job that is fulfilling and allows you to be “creative” is wonderful, but not a divine right — and the ability to temporarily live off occupations like “blogging” is just that: temporary.

The anger is compounded because these hipsters still try to maintain their picky lifestyles while they maintain food stamps. As noted in the article, stores these hipsters shop at range from Trader Joe’s to Whole Foods — stores I personally cannot afford whatsoever. These hipsters do shop at farmer’s markets, which is just fine and frugal, but their choice to go to extremely expensive stores to buy “organic” food on the Government dollar has many, many people angry. There’s nothing wrong with eating healthy: but specialty foods from these stores push the limit, especially when they can cost up to two times as much, valuing the presentation of the food and the display over lowering the price to the point where Forbes insinuated the store dealt in “Food Porn”.

I’m not attempting to bash the arts community, nor am I trying to bash specialty food stores. I am trying to show that it’s not entirely the economy’s fault these “educated, unemployed, 20- to 30-somethings who ‘work’ in creative industries” [quotes mine] are on welfare now, and there’s a legitimate reason to be angry at their use of food stamps. If the economy was strong enough, I’m sure there would be plenty of “blogging”-like jobs available — heck, I’m sure there would be jobs where people did nothing but sit around and be hip for a living. The problem is, these jobs are very much reliant upon the economy to be powerful — and when the economy tanks, these people need real, tangible skills to fall back on. In a sense, “hipsters” need patronage, just as much as artists and writers did of old: and if they can’t get it, they need to find alternative employment, not curl into the fetal position. Put another way, the ability to be “creative” is nice, but creativity oftentimes takes a back seat to practicality, and you can’t whine about not having a job when all you want to/can do is post on blogs or take pictures of yourself wearing “hip” clothing. It’s arrogant to expect the government to pay you until you can find a job you want. And when the government is paying, you don’t get to shop at a store with $4/lb chicken, $19.99/lb cheese, and $390 wine.

Are there jobs hipsters can have and avoid food stamps? Absolutely — not that they would ever take them. Those “educated, unemployed, 20- to 30-somethings” could find steady employment in the military — and if they are indeed college educated, they could even be officers. Even as bad as the economy is today, fast food joints sometimes have job offerings, as do places like Wal Mart. With the right know-how and enough energy, these “hipsters” could start small businesses that do practical and local things, like landscaping or maid services or anything similar, and likely not only make themselves a job, but other jobs in the process. I’m not saying it will be easy to find a job by any means, but if these hipsters are as useful and as educated as they would like to pretend to be, they could undoubtedly find something. Of course, what they would find would likely not give them the opportunity for being “creative” like they want, and none of them would be quite as sexy as being an “artist” or a “designer”, but they are jobs, real and meaningful. And they would leave welfare money to go to people who legitimate need it, not those who just want it.

Independent of your perspective on the immigration debate, statistics are showing that the illegal immigration situation may be much worse than we may initially imagine, not to mention much more diverse.

According to ProCon.org, a website that collects “Pros and Cons of Controversial Issues”, illegal immigrants comprise a whopping 5% of the entire US workforce. Of that number, they comprise 40% of the entire bricklaying workforce, 37% of the drywall installing workforce, and 30% of the “miscellaneous agricultural” workforce (i.e. fruit pickers, farmhands, etc). North Carolina is #9 on the list of states with the highest percentage of illegals, with 380,000 illegals spread across the state. Interestingly enough, the stereotype that all illegals are Mexican isn’t true: while over 60% are indeed Mexican and 14% come from other South American countries, 25% come from countries like Korea (I’m presuming North Korea), the Philippines, China, and India. Total, the population of immigrants in the US total approximately 11.6 million, with 51% in the service and construction industries, as opposed to the 21% of legal US nationals.

What this may indicate in a casual reading is that there may be some legitimacy to the ever-parodied “I lost my job due to illegals” argument. Consequently, it also shows us that the entire issue is not merely “fixing Mexico”, as many pundits may argue: though Mexico is over half the problem, the remaining half of the problem is spread all over the world.

To be honest, however, what is most important in my mind is that this means that there are 11.6 million or more (I’m guessing much more- I doubt many illegals are stupid enough to respond to surveys) people in the US right now who are working, living, and doing other things, implicitly using government resources (even things like roads), and not paying taxes. In terms of our good state, 380,000 people are living and breathing in North Carolina right now who are placing a drain on the system without placing a single dime into it, outside of sales tax and other unavoidable taxes. Furthermore, because illegal immigrants work under the table, their ability to work for cheaper than legitimate U.S. workers unfairly “taxes” Americans and North Carolinians in another way- by taking their jobs by not playing by the rules. If this means that illegals should be simply deported or integrated and forced to pay taxes, or any combination thereof, is up to you. Regardless, one thing is very clear: something needs to be done.

North Carolina has recently been the subject of news and controversy after it was revealed that a Wake County middle-school teacher, FSU grad Melissa Hussain, was suspended from her job because she complained about a proselytizing group of Christian students in her class. You can read the News & Observer article here and get a fairly good summary of the situation here, but the situation is pretty straightforward: Hussain, a science teacher, incited some hatred from certain Christian students after revealing for some reason she was not a Christian. This resulted in the kids allegedly branding her a “Jesus hater”, in which they decided to proselytize her or harass her, I can’t tell which. As a result of her complaints about the incident on Facebook, she was unceremoniously suspended and replaced.

During the period in question, the students left a Bible on her desk with a card with the “Christ” in “Merry Christmas” underlined, wore Christianity-related “Jesus shirts” in class and simultaneously broke into the song “Jesus Loves Me” during class time, and in other instances supposedly pejoratively called her a “jesus-hater”. Hussain, “mad” at the kid(s), posted complaints on the social networking website Facebook, saying, among other things, that she could not believe the “cruelty and ignorance of people”, and that she felt the act of the child leaving the Bible on her desk was “malicious and hurtful”- and, further, in one post said she “was able to shame her kids” for the incident. Some of her friends on the website were less than kind in their comments, calling the children “small minded” and “ignorant rednecks”, and one poster even went so far as to state that Hussain should put up a poster of Dale Earnhardt Jr. on the classroom wall and draw a Nazi swastika on his forehead to punish the children. If you are interested, the full images of the comments can be found here (Warning: PDF).

I’m not sure how to respond to this incident. On one hand, what the children did can indeed be at least loosely defined as a hate crime- the kids clearly ganged up on Hussain to harass her because of her religious beliefs (or lack thereof), and I think it’s fairly clear they were goaded on by their parents or other authorities, as I doubt kids would do this on their own volition. Even beyond that arbitrary definition and the authority figures, I do not think what they did was appropriate- I do not feel a science classroom is the proper forum for the blatant promotion of any religion, be it Christianity or otherwise. On the other hand, however, I think the teacher is over-reacting, and her posts on Facebook did get a little bit dramatic- Hussain should have had the good sense to know better than to whine about small children on Facebook like a small child. She only made it worse by placing it in what was in essence a public forum, where others were implicitly encouraged to ridicule small children. One can only hope she- and her students- will learn better from this incident in the future.