URLs du Jour

2009-08-25

  • I'm a sucker for legislative scorecards, and if you're a Granite Stater, you might want to check out the one from New Hampshire's Business and Industry Association for the state's Senate and House, a rough measure of how our legislators voted on bills impacting the BIA's membership. My results:

    My senator, Amanda Merrill, wangled a dismal 40%, voting "correctly" on two out of the five scored votes. Only five others scored worse.

    And things were even more pathetic on the House side: my reps (Strafford District 2) scored 0%, 0%, 0%, 38%, and 0%.

    <sarcasm>Great, New Hampshire needs to make its business climate more hostile. That will ensure continued prosperity and employment!</sarcasm> Honestly, let's see how many of these guys I can vote against in the next election.

  • At NH Watchdog, Grant Bosse tells the tale of his recent dealings with the NH Department of Motor Vehicles.

  • We previously linked to Whole Foods CEO John Mackey's op-ed ("The Whole Foods Alternative to ObamaCare") in the WSJ two weeks ago, and thought it was great. It went through some editing, though; if you'd like to read the whole original thing, Mackey has posted it on his blog.

    I guess I'm a little surprised by the vituperation that's been pointed at Mackey in the weeks since then. (And I'm not typically surprised by lefty vituperation.) Radley Balko looks at one particular reaction (calls for a Whole Foods boycott); he shares my feelings and expresses them well:

    Let me see if I have the logic correct here: Whole Foods is consistently ranked among the most employee-friendly places to work in the service industry. In fact, Whole Foods treats employees a hell of a lot better than most liberal activist groups do. The company has strict environmental and humane animal treatment standards about how its food is grown and raised. The company buys local. The store near me is hosting a local tasting event for its regional vendors. Last I saw, the company's lowest wage earners make $13.15 per hour. They also get to vote on what type of health insurance they want. And they all get health insurance. The company is also constantly raising money for various philanthropic causes. When I was there today, they were taking donations for a school lunch program. In short, Whole Foods is everything leftists talk about when they talk about "corporate responsibility."

    And his conclusion is one with which it's hard to disagree:

    These people don't want a dicussion [sic]. They don't want to hear ideas. They want you to shut up and do what they say, or they're going to punish you.

    And there's plenty of confirming evidence for that via Drudge: (a) a United Food and Commercial Workers Union (UFCW) press release announcing they'll be "disseminating educational information to Whole Foods shoppers" in Cincinnati; (b) a release from the "CtW Investment Group" demanding that Mackey be removed from his CEO position. (CtW is "Change to Win", a group run by a whole bunch of unions: UFCW, SEIU, Teamsters, etc.)

    Meanwhile, (as I type) Whole Foods' stock is up a healthy 5.18% in the past couple weeks. (Investor's Business Daily has more on that score.)

    It should be an obvious point, but I'll make it anyway: guys like Mackey scare the crap out of "progressives". The only response they have is a knee-jerk "shut up". And their desperate hope is their overreaction will chill out any others in similar positions from speaking up.


Last Modified 2012-10-05 4:23 PM EDT