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James Hamilton

St. Paul, MN
Commenter for
4 years 8 weeks

Recent Comments

Posted on 03/07/13 at 11:15 am in response to Most of what you know about the Cuban Missile Crisis is wrong

a cynic, because I find very little new in this.

By the way: "(just as we had did, only we had more and better missiles)". Really? ;-}

Posted on 03/07/13 at 02:48 pm in response to The great senior sell-off: Our next housing crisis?

should not come as a surprise to anyone. Oddly enough, those of us in smaller homes may feel the effect more strongly, as those in the market see how much more they can get for their dollars when compared to their parents and grandparents.

Posted on 03/06/13 at 09:10 pm in response to GOP's Gruenhagen on welfare, 'minorities' and out-of-wedlock births

of out of wedlock births has indeed climbed, across the board. The causes, however, are not indisputable.

http://www.economist.com/news/united-states/21569433-americas-marriage-r...

As far as the...

Posted on 03/05/13 at 10:55 am in response to $65 million spent lobbying Legislature

than to cherry-pick your source material. Burley makes an important point that you've omitted: the costs that will soon be imposed on employers by the Affordable Care Act make an increase in the minimum wage particularly onerous for some employers.

If what Burley writes regarding his employees' earnings is true (which, based on his restaurants' pricing and clientele, I'm willing to accept), then where's the harm in a tip credit for his employees? Many servers aren't as fortunate as...

Posted on 03/05/13 at 02:31 pm in response to $65 million spent lobbying Legislature

with your proposal is that it is based on speculation as to the risk of future conduct. Basing criminal punishment on the likelihood of future conduct likely runs afoul of the Constitution. We can make penalties for certain crimes more severe, and allow courts some level of discretion in sentencing for those crimes. However, that brings us back to the problems we encountered in the past with indeterminate sentencing: abuses of discretion in both sentencing and parole and disparate...

Posted on 03/05/13 at 02:49 pm in response to $65 million spent lobbying Legislature

choose to serve because it's a job they can get or because it's a job in which they can make a substantial hourly wage? Many work solely for the tips, don't they? The $24 an hour Burley cites for his employees is certainly a respectable hourly wage, although I suspect it can't be annualized because most servers don't get 40 hours a week. Those that do stand to earn $48,000 a year, with two unpaid weeks off.

If they're working part time jobs (50%) then they really can't expect to...

Posted on 03/04/13 at 12:18 pm in response to You have a 5% chance of collecting on a pothole damage claim

for all of us. Report potholes.

Posted on 03/01/13 at 07:20 pm in response to Minnesota winters warming faster than in any other state

Michele Bachmann moved to Minnesota in 1969 and our winter temps have been rising ever since.

Posted on 02/27/13 at 02:57 pm in response to Center of the American Experiment 'wins' Bunkum Award

I've read only a portion of Katherine Kerstens's piece and have not even begun checking her authorities, but what I've seen so far doesn't inspire confidence.

The first difficulty I encountered was in indentifying her qualifications. Her piece merely states that "Katherine Kersten is a Senior Fellow at Center of the American Experiment. She is a regular contributor to the editorial pages of the Star Tribune, and served as a member of the Integration Revenue Replacement Advisory Task...

Posted on 02/27/13 at 03:05 pm in response to Center of the American Experiment 'wins' Bunkum Award

in Pat Anderson's conversion, if it were not for the nagging sense that it's based more on political reality than personal conviction. Why? Perhaps because, as she wrote in the PPRess, "[m]any of the Republican legislators who voted to add that amendment did so against their better judgment and personal feelings on the issue[.]"

Integrity is not a four letter, word, folks. Let's see some.