No cake for you

Another incident of a baker refusing to bake a cake. But with a difference. A man walked into the Azucar Bakery in Denver and wanted a cake in the shape of a bible with words such as "God hates homosexuality" and related symbols such as "no" over two men holding hands. The owner said she would make a bible shaped a cake but would not add the hate speech text. She would sell him the equipment and materials so he could do that work himself. He threatened a lawsuit. Later that day she received a notice the Department of Regulatory Agencies of a complaint filed against her. Commenters say this man doesn't have a case.



I've mentioned a couple times that my medical insurance has a "qualification" period. If I don't meet certain goals for weight (the one that usually catches me), cholesterol, blood pressure, and a half-dozen more I have to agree to improvement programs or pay higher copays if I need to use the insurance. These "wellness" initiatives have become very popular with insurers and corporations. The number of companies using these plans is expected to reach 46%. This is why: Savings in actual health care costs per person is perhaps $40. Not much of a gain when the programs cost about $100-300 per person. But a company makes $500 per person in penalties from people who refuse to participate.



Daily Kos says the next GOP target is Social Security. The system will hit a shortfall next year and there is a new House rule that says any money shifted to keep it afloat must come with a "fix." The first step will pit the disabled against the elderly, and we know the AARP will make sure the elderly will not be the losers. You see, all those disabled people are "undeserving" and they're "stealing" from the elderly. These disabled are likely refugees from the loss of welfare programs. The GOP likely won't stop there. The goal is to make the Social Security system so weak it becomes politically easy to kill the whole thing.



E.J. Dionne, writing for Truthdig, notes the rich complain about wealth redistribution and the rich and poor being "makers versus takers"(though the talk quieted down a bit after Mitt Romney's famous 47% gaffe). Dionne says the "makers" and "takers" labels are backwards. The poor pay almost 11% of income in various state and local taxes, while those in the 1% pays only 5.4% of their income in state and local taxes. It is the rich who are the takers.



The Southern Education Foundation says as of the 2012-13 school year 51% of K-12 students in public schools qualify for free or reduced-price lunch programs. That means their families are poor. The range is below 30% of students in New Hampshire to over 70% in Mississippi. There are a couple reasons for this new high in poverty in our schools. (1) The middle class has shrunk and the poor class has grown. (2) Those who can afford it are getting their kids out of public schools (apparently, in the South public schools were always for just the poor). How is it we can be the richest country and more than half of our public school students can't afford food?



Author Junot Diaz wonders why blacks are seen as having a race problem and whites aren't? Isn't the black race problem caused by whites?

Andrew Freedman of Mashable expands on the recent report that 2014 is the hottest year since records were started in 1880. In addition, the last 15 years included the 13 hottest. Freedman examines several other statistics and includes a few graphs. Just remember climate change is not local – 2014 was far from Michigan's hottest year.