Taking Away Unemployment Benefits Doesn’t Make People Get Jobs and other news and views for Wednesday 21 May

  • No, Taking Away Unemployment Benefits Doesn’t Make People Get Jobs - "This notion that temporary unemployment benefits provide people a reason not to return to work really needs to end because it is not supported by the data,” Illinois Department of Employment Security Director Jay Rowell said."
  • Global Temperatures Tied Record High Last Month
    • Happy, McDonald's new mascot has not proved a big hit. Photograph: McDonalds
    • The terrifying new McDonald's mascot – and other creepy corporate monsters - "The fast-food container with human teeth has not been well received – but he's not the first beast to scare people off a brand.
    • Queensland corruption fighter Doug Drummond says CMC changes 'very dangerous, very worrying' - "Changes to Queensland's Crime and Misconduct Commission (CMC) are designed to spare the Newman Government political embarrassment, a top Queensland corruption fighter says. Doug Drummond QC, the special prosecutor who helped convict former police chief Terry Lewis and dozens of others in the wake of the 1989 Fitzgerald Inquiry and later served as a CMC commissioner, told the ABC the reforms would leave the door open to the kind of corruption uncovered by the ICAC inquiry in New South Wales. He claimed the amendments to the Crime and Misconduct Act were designed to allow the ruling Liberal National Party (LNP) to raise campaign funds unimpeded by the attentions of an anti-corruption body.
    • Napoleon I seated backwards on a donkey on the road "to Elba" from Fontainebleau. Text on saddle: Materials for the history of my life and exploits // A budget of mathematical books for my study at ELBA Text top left: A throne is only made of wood and cover'd in velvet. Text behind the donkey: The greatest events in human life is turn'd to a puff.
      Napoleon I seated backwards on a donkey on the road "to Elba" from Fontainebleau.
      Text on saddle: Materials for the history of my life and exploits // A budget of mathematical books for my study at ELBA
      Text top left: A throne is only made of wood and cover'd in velvet.
      Text behind the donkey: The greatest events in human life is turn'd to a puff. - "Napoleonic anniversaries are neither officially marked nor celebrated in France. Two hundred years after his exile to Elba, Bonaparte’s latter-day countrymen still can’t decide if he is a hero or a villain."
      • Defeated and inglorious? - "Napoleonic anniversaries are neither officially marked nor celebrated in France. Two hundred years after his exile to Elba, Bonaparte’s latter-day countrymen still can’t decide if he is a hero or a villain."
      2014-05-21_respect
    An apology to the Treasurer
    In this news and views section yesterday I included this item:
    Hockey’s Free Lunch, No Questions Asked – “Hockey is the keynote speaker at an Australian Council of Social Services luncheon in Sydney, at Parliament House. But his appearance is on the basis that he not only gets a free lunch, but a free kick as well — organisers have been told Hockey will only appear if no questions are permitted from attendees.”
    The item linked to the New Matilda site from which it was taken. Well tonight I note from an AAP report of the lunch:
    Guests at the ACOSS event, many of whom represent the underprivileged, took the opportunity to grill Mr Hockey for one hour and 10 minutes. He gave combative replies, interrupting or debating questioners if he thought the proposition of their question was wrong.
    Hence an apology is in order. Presumably New Matilda will eventually make a correction itself.

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